Rivera Appointed to Council

In quick order and with no discussion, Marfa City Council appointed Gloria Rivera to fill the seat vacated by Lorina Chavez. Council launched into the business with no delay and heard speeches by Carl Robinson, Larry Skiles and Gloria Rivera. Carl was calm and sincere and stressed the importance of sound financial principles and promised to work with the city whether appointed or not. Larry lectured council on fiscal management as "a taxpayer, investor, and citizen." He also discussed a conflict as he advises the city on financial matters. He criticized the city's financial practices concerning the budget and taxes. Gloria made a very short and confident presentation and admitted she had been rejected twice in a row by voters recently.

After some silence, Leo Salgado motioned to appoint Carl Robinson. The motion died for lack of a second. A motion was made by Mary Williams to appoint Gloria Rivera and seconded by both Oscar Martinez and Lupe Devine (yes, she was actually present for two regular meetings in a row!). The motion passed three to one with absolutely no discussion by council. Lanman swore Rivera in with seeming pleasure.

Folks, this bird was cooked before the meeting took place. It was cooked before Lupe got in her car to drive from Austin for this meeting. The deal was done and it went down without a whimper from council or the audience. Nothing but stunned silence as the audience realized the game was rigged from the start. There is nothing wrong with councilmembers making up their mind beforehand. I may be out on a limb saying the deal was done before. I call it like I see it. I saw a deal completed ahead of time.

The rest of the meeting was an unqualified disaster full of insults and accusations thrown in every direction possible by mayor, council, administrator and audience with yours truly proudly throwing an extra one in for good measure. I'll describe that in the next post.

I'll close with a summary of Gloria Rivera's first official Councilmember comment following the other four. She expressed her gratitude for being appointed, she begged everybody to get along and work for the best of Marfa, then she launched into one of the most vicious attacks of the evening attacking fellow Councilmember Leo Salgado seated to her right with intense criticism of his actions from years ago when she was on council last time and he was in charge of finance. Absolutely vicious and vindictive and so two years old. Another stunning low for Marfa. Council, I hope you are prepared for what you have created. You had an opportunity to trust one of the most experienced administrative minds in Marfa. You could have chosen to work with an elder statesman who loves Marfa and wants to help it deal with its problems effectively and calmly. You chose a mean firecracker who will ask for cooperation in one sentence and attack her neighbor in the next breath. Best of luck to you. You need all the luck you can get. Then the mayor "prayed" for cooperation which was perhaps the lightest moment of the evening as he is a devout secularist.