tony jeter dot com

A friend of mine recently told me that the code of ethics for attorneys requires them to avoid situations having any semblance of a conflict of interest.  I must admit that I am a wee bit skeptical of this claim and am working to confirm its veracity. Its not that I don’t believe my compadre it just something about a code of ethics for lawyers that doesn’t sound kosher.  Now don’t get me wrong I know lots upright and honest attorneys it’s just that I am a little jaded by all of the bad apples that I have dealt with or heard about over the years.  I have always counted the honest attorneys as the exception not the norm. My cynicism leads me to feel that the term ethical lawyer is akin to the term honest politician – both oxymorons.   If this is, in fact, part of their code it would mean the lawyers have a higher standard of ethics than elected officials.  After all the only litmus test your Council, and other elected officials, must pass is whether or not something is legal. I am here to tell you that a pretty low bar to climb, your Council does it all the time. Who’d a thought that lawyers have a higher bar for ethics than your City Council?

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

Kudos to our City Engineer Michael Newman!  Click here to view a nice letter the City received commending Mr. Newman on his attentiveness and professionalism.

Below is an email I received this evening concerning the details stimulus package as they relate to transportation issues.  The City of Temple is a member of the TEX-21 coalition.  Click here to view the PDF referenced below.

Dear TEX-21 Members,

Attached is an updated, Side-by-Side Analysis of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  This new version includes a detailed breakdown of the transit related provisions included in the final version of the bill  produced by a House-Senate Conference over the past several days. The legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. President Obama expects to sign the bill Tuesday in Denver.

Bret Chambliss

Dean International, Inc.
8080 Park Lane, Suite 600
Dallas, TX 75231

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

Below is the City’s press release concerning the new sales tax numbers.

TEMPLE, TX – February 12, 2009 – Yesterday, the State Comptroller’s Office released sales tax information relative to December, 2008, receipts by the State. The numbers* for Temple, the region and the State are as follows:
- For the State, sales tax was up 2.51%
- For the Temple region, sales tax was down an average of 1.62%**
- For Temple, sales tax was down 3.31%
The current budget projected an annual increase of 3.83% growth in our sales tax.  Based on the current year’s actual reported numbers to date, our sales tax revenue would fall short of budget by 1.82 %, or $570,000.
While sales tax revenue is a significant source of the overall General Fund revenue, it represents approximately 29%, or about $15.8M, of total budgeted General Fund revenue for FY 2008-09. By January, the City has historically received 4 months and approximately 36%, or about $5.7 million, of its total sales tax revenue for the fiscal year.   Historically, sales tax revenue for purchases made in the month of December has contributed 11.5%, or $1.8M, of total sales tax revenue for the year.   December is traditionally the most active month for retail activity and generation of sales tax revenue, but historically it represents only about 3% of total general fund revenues.
“Conservative policies and practices in other areas of the City budget are allowing the City to maintain a favorable outlook for the remainder of this fiscal year,” states City Manager David Blackburn.  “Fuel expenses, for example, are running well below budgeted levels (current estimated savings in these accounts are estimated to be around $900,000) and those savings will help offset other areas where revenues might fall short of projections.”
“Thus,” Blackburn continues, “the City’s overall budget outlook for the remainder of this fiscal year continues to remain stable.”

Click here to see how well the area weathered last December. Overall the entire area did better than I had anticipated. I must admit I was expecting a double digit decline for Temple alone.

I was doing some research this morning for a seminar I am giving tomorrow in Austin to the Texas Association of Mutual Insurance Companies “TAMIC”.  Not that anyone cares… but, the name of the seminar is “The Y’allternative to Business Ethics”.  I looked up the term “conflict of interest” on Wikipedia and found the following explanation.  The bolded copy was done by me for emphasis.

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization (such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, politician, engineer, executive, director of a corporation, medical research scientist, physician, writer, editor, or an individual or organization cited as a source) has an interest that might compromise their reliability. A conflict of interest exists even if no improper act results from it, and can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the conflicted individual or organization. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below—but it still exists.

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

I guess it has been too long for most people to remember Tom Martin. Tom Martin was the Director of Public Works when I first elected to the Council over 6 years ago. It wasn’t long after the election that he was let go by the former City Manager. At the time there were lots of justifications as to why he needed to go but from my perspective a big reason was that he got crossways with a Councilperson. While you may not remember Tom Martin there is one group of people that remember him well, our City employees. They saw first hand what could happen when you cross a Councilperson. Now put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to police the work of one of your bosses?  Well that’s the exact position we have placed numerous City employees that have oversight responsibilities for construction contracts awarded to a Councilperson.