Fault Lines in Richardson
Yesterday, I published my first look at Richardson's City Council elections. Richardson City News, a blog by Nathan Morgan, also published its own look, offering some unconventional insights into politics in Richardson. Morgan is a fringe figure in Richardson politics, a kind of tinfoil hat-wearing, conspiracy-minded gadfly who is convinced the city council is full of Nazis. His writing is as dense as Theodore Kaczynski's and almost as verbose. But, this time he controls himself (mostly) and is worth a read.
The Empire Strikes Back: One of the areas to watch this election is whether the Richardson Coalition PAC can regain a majority on the council. If so, expect Gary Slagel to be re-elected mayor, a post he was removed from in 2007. The PAC's faction on the council consists of Slagel, John Murphy and Bob Townsend. This year, the PAC managed to recruit long-time PAC supporter Bob Macy to run against incumbent Pris Hayes, an outsider who won her seat in 2007 after Jim Shepherd stepped down. In Place 2, Mark Solomon is running to replace Rhea Allison, who is stepping down. If elected, Solomon also could provide the fourth vote to restore Slagel to mayor.
A wild card in the race could be illegal immigration and other right-wing conservative causes. The Richardson Coalition PAC recently published an editorial calling for an English language ordinance and for police to investigate immigration status and report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Let's hope this potentially community-splitting issue is not exploited in this election.
If the Richardson Coalition PAC doesn't introduce wedge issues,
some of the new candidates might. Republican Precinct Chair Chris
Davis is running for the open Place 3 seat. Davis is involved in
conservative politics, and by conservative, I mean even for Texas.
She endorsed Cynthia Dunbar, member of the Texas State Board of
Education. Dunbar is best known for promoting creationism in our
schools and for her rant that the election of Barack Obama would mean
the "end of America as we know her." Davis also endorsed Randall
Dunning in the 2008 GOP primary for Texas House. Dunning, a former
Garland City Council member, is known for wearing a bullet-proof vest
to Garland council meetings and having an underground bunker shelter at his house.
Dunning also supports the abolition of public schools and teaching
creationism instead of evolution. Incumbent Dennis Stewart also
endorsed Dunning. And it's possible that newcomer Thomas Bache-Wiig
might, too. These candidates bear watching ... closely.
Perennial fringe candidate Cheryl Miller is running again and should spice up the candidate forums even if her chances of election are slim. She's running in Place 3 against John Murphy, who can't be looking forward to defending himself against Miller's unpredictable line of attack.
Finally, I look forward to learning more about Jennifer Justice, Jimmy Schnurr, Thomas Volmer, Diane Wardrup and Amir Omar, some of whom are blank slates (to me) and some just new to Richardson politics. What little I know about Wardrup and Omar tells me they could be factors in this election.
14 comments:
I don't live in Richardson. After reading about these candidates, I'm glad I don't. Good Lord, what a bunch of lunatics!
To be fair to the council, I concentrated here on the colorful characters and worrisome candidates. If history is any guide, few, if any, of the characters who run for city council get elected. Richardson voters have been pretty level-headed. I hope they remain so.
Correction. The Richardson coalition did not call on any such language ordinance. They had some oddly vague statement saying "language of Richardson." It didn't even say "official language." We are left to wonder what that was supposed to mean.
The Richardson Coalition editorial stated, "We believe that English should be the language of the City of Richardson."
Mr. Ed speaks again with predictable bias and misunderstanding of the underlying issues resulting from limited exposure to the daylight. This is typical of those who refuse to believe what is plainly visible, or who are unable to connect the dots.
I can't publish a correction if you don't give me anything specific to work with.
Hello Ed, I notice that you don't have your facts straight and have now attained the dubious distinction of somberly repeating one of the silliest political fabrications in history of Dallas County politics. What kind of patronizing nonsense conflates a storm/tornado shelter into a "bunker"? Come on, Ed, how gullible and/or truth challenged can you be? You have committed the cardinal sin of repeating year old campaign hogwash as if it were fact. You can do better.
Fair enough. I've changed the word bunker to shelter.
"But, this time he [Nathan Morgan] controls himself (mostly) and is worth a read. "
Well, no. What he spouts off is a bunch of gibberish that has very little relation to the truth. Let's take his description of Dennis Stewart as an example:
1. "Dennis Stewart...introduced Council rules change that resulted in elimination of reasonable [emphasis mine] opportunity for citizens to address issues of pubic business at Council meetings".
This is not true, because the rules that were adopted (and supported by the entire Council, as I recall), were designed to (a) give people the chance to speak, and (b) prevent certain people from running away at the mouth and preventing the Council from getting any business done.
What Nathan wanted was the personal privilege of being able to put in his two cents' worth on EVERY SINGLE agenda item, whether or not it was open for a public hearing. Furthermore, he clearly wants to keep the Council (and the long-suffering public) trapped in their seats as long as possible, while he asks a series of inane questions that show that he has no understanding of the law, of government, or of much else. If anything, the rules were precisely defined to keep him from impeding the Council's ability to conduct the public's business.
News to Nathan: if you want to be able to speak on any subject, then get elected to the Council; otherwise, stop whining.
2. "promoted changing the Charter to enable closed meetings" - well, yeah, these closed meetings that are authorized explicitly by state law and are done in nearly every municipality for very good reasons. Oh, yeah, and when the people were asked if this was a good idea, something like 83% of voters said yes. Nathan is all in favor of democracy, except when the people disagree when him; then he has to create all sorts of explanations of how it was done by crooked means.
3. "condones parsing of the law to justify objectionable activities behind closed doors" - nonsense, Dennis Stewart did no such thing. The problem is that Nathan explicitly states that he doesn't want any closed meetings - even those allowed by state law - so by definition, anything behind closed doors is "objectionable" - but it's only objectionable to him, not to state law, city ordinance, case law, or any reasonable person.
4. "author of term limit amendment to City Charter although substantially unenforceable in its final form" - 'substantially enforceable' - what nonsense! The ordinance is quite enforceable. What Nathan is really objecting to is that it gave Gary Slagel another 12 years on the Council, because it started the clock ticking from today (well, a year or two ago), and wasn't made retroactive. But for some reason, Nathan can't bring himself to admit his real objection to Stewart's actions.
5. "In spite of farthest east side panhandle residence, recognized as co-founder of American flag rental program in farthest west side Canyon Creek neighborhood, location of the largest organized voting block known to have decided many city elections."
So what are you opposed to, Nathan, a program that displays the US flag on holidays? Or the fact that Dennis Stewart is actually involved in areas of Richardson outside his own neighborhood? Gee, you would have thought that this would be a good thing, but Nathan twists everything into a negative, even when it's a positive.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but Nathan Morgan's gross mischaracterizations of nearly every thing he reports begs for a detailed, point by point refutation, so that people will come to understand that you can never trust anything he says, because he can and will twist words, distort the truth, and outright lie about anything to gain his personal agenda.
"Anonymous," don't apologize for being long-winded. Nathan Morgan is long-winded. To respond to his arguments, it's understandable if one ends up running on a little himself.
I said Nathan Morgan's "writing is as dense as Theodore Kaczynski's and almost as verbose." So, when I said that "this time he controls himself (mostly) and is worth a read," I was only drawing a contrast with his usual indecipherable rants. I actually understood what he was saying. I wasn't claiming his version of events was necessarily accurate. Thanks for providing needed balance.
hahaha, Ed...this year's indecipherable point is Sheryl Miller's statement on her website that "ADDITIONAL PAYMENT OPTION ADDED TO PROPERTY TAXES 3 0R 5% FOR ALL RESIDENTS". She also says in the forums something about adding to your property taxes.
None of us have any idea what she's talking about...honestly, at the forum at Mohawk Elementary last week, we all assumed that she just misspoke...but I guess not...
Sheryl Miller is referring to the city charter, section 16.03, that grants the council the power to provide for split payment of property taxes and to provide for penalty and interest to be assessed on all delinquent taxes. Miller is proposing "3 or 5%." She should clarify what she means by that.
Thanks, Ed, although I still don't know what she means by the 3% or 5%. However, it may not matter, as I see that she has changed her website this morning. It now says only "ADDITIONAL PAYMENT OPTION ADDED TO PROPERTY TAXES" with the percentages removed.
I am impressed that you ferreted out section 16.03 from her statement - or maybe you just called her? If so, you did her a favor, because while the current statement is still none too clear, it's less threatening than her obscure statements that sounded like she wanted to raise property taxes 3-5%.
Sheryl Miller is referring to the penalty for late payment of property taxes. I believe it starts out at a 7% penalty for the first month payment is late, rising with each month after. Miller is proposing reducing the penalty to 3% or 5% for the first month delinquent. I don't know why she hasn't decided which.
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