Meeting Report Feb. 22, 2007
Does it feel like we just had a meeting report? We did, just nine days ago. Meetings are on the second Tuesday and last Thursday. A short month likes this can bunch the meetings together. The next meeting will be in nineteen days on March 13th. I'll try an abbreviated meeting report. Missing from tonight's meeting was Gloria Rivera and David Lanman. No big surprise on Gloria; she gave Sauceda his golden parachute and then bailed out as well. Mayor Lanman left on Wednesday for a Monday meeting in Austin about the $1.3M sewer loan. Like all elected officials, he serves without compensation except a nominal payment to council members for meeting attendance. An occasional absence is expected. In fact, his absence gave those in attendance a lovely view of the future when meetings will be carried out by sincere public officials trying to do the best for all of Marfa not just the mayor's friends. Leo Salgado was the presiding officer as mayor pro tem.
We started off on a light note trying to do the pledge but unable to find the flag! The administrator suggested we face a small flag decal on the gas company office door. Council member Martinez insisted on fetching the proper flag from the small conference room from where it had been used earlier for some official business.
It was also a short agenda. The minutes from January 25 were adopted with a few typos noticed by Oscar and a request by him to acknowledge that not only is Ann Dunlap a citizen as noted in the minutes, but also an appreciated volunteer.
Oscar Martinez and Leo Salgado made council member comments. Oscar asked that the city move forward on the SWTMG by-laws. He also asked the city to look into an additional sales tax at a future election. Cities are allowed to charge 1/8 to 1/2 cent of sales tax solely for the purpose of property tax relief. This would provide some relief to citizens whether the city raises taxes or not. Leo asked why the presentation from Dr. Rangra at the previous meeting was scheduled late in the meeting. He asked future agendas to be written with consideration to those traveling from out of town so that they can speak earlier.
Moving along quickly to the Administrator's Report. The city has obtained the forms needed to pay Terry Meyers for her work on the Visionaries in Preservation survey of historic properties in Marfa. Sauceda invited all council members to attend the Texas Water Development Board meetings in Austin next week where they will consider Marfa's $1.265M loan application. Only the mayor and administrator are going, along with Mike Pink of Parkhill Smith and Cooper, the city's engineering contractor for the wastewater plant improvement project. More on this later.
The city has suffered a serious municipal court breach of security by a citizen who has gained access by posing as an employee and changed passwords. The city is investigating this security breach and contacting the vendors to verify authorization. Zowie. Holy internet Batman! What in the world is happening. This sounds terribly serious. Vilis Inde inquired from the audience, "Who was this citizen?" The administrator responded, "It was Rob Crowley." Gasp. How could the citizen of the year go so bad so quickly?
I requested permission to address council and explained that I was recently asked by one of the city clerks if I knew anything about wireless internet in the Casner room. I told her that I did. I used the city's wireless DSL service a year ago in computer presentations to the city council about the proposed Building Permit Ordinance and used the internet to show them state legal resources on the web related to construction. I also take my computer to BoA meetings in case I can help out with internet information. The city does not make a computer available to any advisory board. Everything is on paper in this city. Some weeks ago, the city lost their internet connection when the modem failed. I suggested that the city contact AT&T and get a new modem. They did, and it was installed by the city's technology contractor. [I mistakenly believed that the wireless was not working. In fact, it had been intenionally disabled. Nobody told me this when I was asked about wireless networking in Casner room or when I tried to help. Staff was unaware.]
I was asked this week if I knew anything about wireless internet because the Council of Governments was planning a meeting in the Casner room and requested wireless internet. I offered to help and took my notebook computer to city hall. I spoke with the city clerk and the municipal court clerk and explained that I would call AT&T and see if they could diagnose the problem. Using only my personal computer and my cell phone, I called technical support and explained the problem. They tested the line and the modem from their end, then they reset the wireless access password and asked me to check it again. It worked. I informed both clerks of the good news and told them both the password that AT&T created. This password only affects wireless internet which is not used by anybody at city hall. Evidently, the municipal court clerk's computer could not access the internet until she rebooted. I did all this with my equipment and phone and time to help out the city before a COG meeting. What did I get for my willingness to help the city in a jam at no expense to them? This Luddite of an administrator accused me of being a security breach.
Ding! Ding! Ding! It's time for the MarfaGov Word of the Day! Today's word is Luddite:
Vilis Inde made a brief presentation on the mayor's personal committee to develop a website for the city. He talked about general information such as contact information, building permit applications, and zoning ordinances. He stressed multiple times that there would be nothing controversial but did not explain what that might include. He was asked if this was an official notification to the city. He replied that it was not and that the work was in its infancy. He was asked who was on the committee: himself, Betsy Burns and some people that preferred to remain anonymous because of hostilities involved in city work. As one who has suffered more than my fair share of hostility, I can understand the desire but disagree with secret committees. If citizens are not willing to stand behind their work in broad daylight, they should stay out of municipal work. Martinez agreed and said it was "totally wrong to go surreptitiously behind people's backs." He reminded the audience of the mayor's previous secret committee to craft an alternative Building Permit Ordinance that favored the mayor's business. Dr. Burns was on that committee also. Vilis said that he would ask the other committee members if they wanted to go public and said that the committee was open to all interested citizens. To see what the mayor has come up with so far, see the city's website complete with cartoon choo-choo and the mayor's idea of a new city slogan.
Vilis spoke frequently about the internet needs of people moving to the area and buying and fixing up property; people like himself in other words. He talked about how to get building permits, how to see how potential purchases are zoned, and the zoning ordinance. He mentioned nothing that would be useful to regular life-long citizens such as the hours for the library and pool and compost area. Nothing about the nutrition center or meals-on-wheels. Nothing about utility bills. In short, he talked about a web site for people interested in buying property and doing construction. If ever a committee needed more diversity, it is this one.
Pam Harris gave a Planning & Zoning report and discussed the need for another volunteer board member, problems with delayed mailings of the agenda to members, construction of a map case for the only copy of the zoning map, the 3rd Street Compound project and the need for a Planned Development District. and issues related to permits for areas subject to flooding.
Ann Dunlap gave a report on the Board of Adjustment. She described variances that were issued and in progress, problem with the administrator incorrectly publishing their agenda in the paper, a letter to P&Z concerning zoning rules for 27-foot wide lots that cause variance requests, problems with the map not being signed. Keller Doss commented on the mayor's refusal to sign the map and asked council to pressure him. He also described some resources that he found for making certified copies of the map once it has been signed. The city has one copy of the map and no backups. Rudy Garcia stated his desire to see a text description of the zones in the ordinance. There was considerable discussion of the mayor's refusal to sign the map. This is one of Marfa's embarrassing inabilities to accomplish even the smallest thing. The map was adopted by council in April 2001 and has been used since then with some changes being made such as the West Heights annexation. It was not signed at the time of adoption as required by law. Mayor Martinez did not sign it because he found some simple errors he wanted fixed first. Mayor Lanman has refused to sign it despite repeated requests. Without a signature, it is not official. The mayor accuses the P&Z of not doing enough yet refuses to do the one thing that he can to help the city move forward.
Rod Ponton spoke of Pete Gallego's bill about water districts and the rights of cities. One issue related to unelected people on a water board having the right to dictate rules to the city. Another issue is the difficulty in exempting cities and allowing El Paso to do as they please with Presidio County land. Council tabled the discussion.
Council approved the action of calling the election for May 12 with 12-hour early voting days on May 1st and May 3rd.
Council approved a four-year contract with Pitney Bowes for postage metering at $102 per month.
Back to the $1.265M sewer plant loan... Flo and Dave will both be in Austin for the meetings on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Marfa's application will be considered by the Texas Water Development Board. If accepted, the city will have 30 days to accept. Public meetings will be held. Not much new information was discussed. Flo also invited all council members and Robert Silva in addition to the engineer. It is hard to understand why he thinks it takes the entire city to sit through these meetings. I guess we have unlimited travel budgets.
On to the expenditure report. This should be the most boring item of all with expenses in line with the budget and revenue coming in as expected and all entries made correctly. But this is Marfa and Sauceda is both administrator and coup d'etat comptroller after forcing Salgado out. It started off quiet with much study of the financial report and then the temperature rose and the heat was on. Sauceda wants to start holding budget workshop meetings in March this year and talked about amending the budget early. Sauceda questioned the need for amending the budget already. Salgado complained about the column labeled "Amended" on the report and asked that it be zero'ed out to reflect no amendment. Sauceda whined about program limitations again and presented a 2004 report that was similar. He did not present 2005 and 2006 reports that showed his illegal budget amendments. Sly.
A council member asked about the $2200 payment to Dan Painter as auditor. It turns out that Painter invoiced Marfa this year for work done last year as a management consultant. This belongs in professional services. Leo slashed that line item because of Sauceda's out of control legal expenses and used that money to pay the public safety office staff member. Council should have discussed this more. Sauceda is charging professional services to the wrong budget line item (audit) because he has already spent way too much money on professional services this year. He is misallocating expenses to hide them from council in order to overspend the budget again.
I asked if the official budget has been released yet. This was due September 30, 2006 but council did not approve the budget until December. Here we are in February and the administrator has not produced the official budget yet. There is a computer printout of the budget. Sauceda said he filed it at the courthouse. The official budget has much more information in it including financial statements, tax information, debt information and charts. Sauceda was TEN MONTHS LATE in producing this last year and only got it done with Dan Painter's help ($2200?). He has yet to produce this document this year FIVE MONTHS LATE and says he is still working on it. Right. I have some beachfront property in Van Horn he can buy... Salgado pushed the issue while the rest of council was silent. Imagine how much work Sauceda could have accomplished on the budget if he did not use office time for travel days.
Leo asked why the January sales tax income was not included in a February report. It turns out that the staff did not enter it promptly in the computer. Salgado questioned Sauceda harshly about checking the report before giving it to council. The conversation went something like this:
Leo: Is there any sales tax in January, where does it show it? It shows zero.
Laura: I just recorded that today, because I reconciled the bank statements today.
Leo: That's another thing I don't understand. When did you deposit that money?
Flo: That money comes direct to us from the state.
Leo: (can't understand recording)
Laura: I just did that today.
Leo: Did you notice that it was short in the reports?
Flo: It's only the 21st.
Leo: It usually comes in on the 10th. So we don't know how much we got for Parks & Rec and for streets?
Laura: For Parks & Rec it was...
Leo: No, I am saying it is not on here, so it is not a complete statement of revenue and expenditures, is that correct?
Flo: Any document that is generated during the fiscal year is unaudited.
Leo: It is not a correct...
Flo: It is unaudited. She stated that it had not been recorded...
Leo: You are not listening to what i am saying. You got money in January but it is not listed here, so this is incorrect. Is that true?
Flo: It's incomplete. The technical word is that it is unaudited.
Leo: Golly. Come on. Give me a break.
Flo: It is a monthly document, it is a floating...
Leo: But it is not correct. It is not a true statement of revenue and expenditures. That is what I am getting at.
Flo: The staff will work harder to make sure all automatic transfers from the state are recorded properly.
Leo: Any other statements or corrections?
(some discussion about income and Parks & Rec and missing the January report.)
Leo: Any other questions about the expenditures report? What's the council's pleasure?
Oscar: I have a problem approving an expenditure report like this when it is incomplete unless we are told in advance that items are missing so that we don't have to look to see if items are missing.
Leo: Do you go over this every month?
Flo: We look at it.
Leo: You look at it. I said, do you go over it?
Flo: As best we can.
Leo: No no no. That's not what I'm asking. Do you go over this report before you put it in the packet?
Flo: We review it and...
Leo: You didn't notice that there was no sales tax?
Flo: No we did not.
Leo: That is the reason we ask for this. You should go over this and find things like this and correct them before it goes into our packet. There is no reason to look at something like this and then ask us to approve it.
Flo: You don't have to approve it. We can bring it back with those changes. And we can add those amounts. That's your decision to make.
Leo.: That's not my point...
Flo: I get your point.
The razzle dazzle of Flo has lost its luster. His recent contract has given him a confidence that exceeds his competence. His obsequiousness has been replaced by cockiness. Can we send him home soon? Marfa deserves better.
Mary Williams motioned to table the matter. Petrosky seconded. All in favor.
Finishing off with citizen comments. Rudy Garcia gave some history of the gas company and the participation of Marfa and Alpine. He asked for guidance from council to make sure he was on the right track. Oscar Martinez supported his efforts.
Keller Doss spoke in support of the city staff that works for Flo and expressed appreciation for their work. He pointed out that management was the cause of problems. I stressed the importance of open records training for elected officials and the administrator as required by law. I also asked council to find funds to hire a comptroller to address all our financial problems. Robert Arber asked council to consider alternative places for showing films during library remodeling. Joanie Marginot introduced herself as new chamber of commerce manager.
Oscar raised an issue that he hoped would come up in citizen comments. It seems the city received a letter from Doug Humble concerning the sewer easement problem. He bought property without realizing a city sewer main crossed the property. No easement can be found from the time before the fire. The city could simply argue that they have the right to continue using that easement, but the city voted to move the sewer main at taxpayer expense and make some consideration to Mr. Humble for the easement for the relocated sewer line near the edge of the property. Now Mr. Humble is asking for five free water hookups and five free sewer hookups. Oscar is concerned. Flo explained that this was part of the consideration that was to be discussed. This is another "friend of the mayor" issue. Council will take this up at a future meeting.
Leo Salgado asked for a motion to adjourn, received it and a second and voted to adjourn. He did a great job as presiding officer. The future looks promising with a new mayor as presiding officer after the election in 79 days.
We started off on a light note trying to do the pledge but unable to find the flag! The administrator suggested we face a small flag decal on the gas company office door. Council member Martinez insisted on fetching the proper flag from the small conference room from where it had been used earlier for some official business.
It was also a short agenda. The minutes from January 25 were adopted with a few typos noticed by Oscar and a request by him to acknowledge that not only is Ann Dunlap a citizen as noted in the minutes, but also an appreciated volunteer.
Oscar Martinez and Leo Salgado made council member comments. Oscar asked that the city move forward on the SWTMG by-laws. He also asked the city to look into an additional sales tax at a future election. Cities are allowed to charge 1/8 to 1/2 cent of sales tax solely for the purpose of property tax relief. This would provide some relief to citizens whether the city raises taxes or not. Leo asked why the presentation from Dr. Rangra at the previous meeting was scheduled late in the meeting. He asked future agendas to be written with consideration to those traveling from out of town so that they can speak earlier.
Moving along quickly to the Administrator's Report. The city has obtained the forms needed to pay Terry Meyers for her work on the Visionaries in Preservation survey of historic properties in Marfa. Sauceda invited all council members to attend the Texas Water Development Board meetings in Austin next week where they will consider Marfa's $1.265M loan application. Only the mayor and administrator are going, along with Mike Pink of Parkhill Smith and Cooper, the city's engineering contractor for the wastewater plant improvement project. More on this later.
The city has suffered a serious municipal court breach of security by a citizen who has gained access by posing as an employee and changed passwords. The city is investigating this security breach and contacting the vendors to verify authorization. Zowie. Holy internet Batman! What in the world is happening. This sounds terribly serious. Vilis Inde inquired from the audience, "Who was this citizen?" The administrator responded, "It was Rob Crowley." Gasp. How could the citizen of the year go so bad so quickly?
I requested permission to address council and explained that I was recently asked by one of the city clerks if I knew anything about wireless internet in the Casner room. I told her that I did. I used the city's wireless DSL service a year ago in computer presentations to the city council about the proposed Building Permit Ordinance and used the internet to show them state legal resources on the web related to construction. I also take my computer to BoA meetings in case I can help out with internet information. The city does not make a computer available to any advisory board. Everything is on paper in this city. Some weeks ago, the city lost their internet connection when the modem failed. I suggested that the city contact AT&T and get a new modem. They did, and it was installed by the city's technology contractor. [I mistakenly believed that the wireless was not working. In fact, it had been intenionally disabled. Nobody told me this when I was asked about wireless networking in Casner room or when I tried to help. Staff was unaware.]
I was asked this week if I knew anything about wireless internet because the Council of Governments was planning a meeting in the Casner room and requested wireless internet. I offered to help and took my notebook computer to city hall. I spoke with the city clerk and the municipal court clerk and explained that I would call AT&T and see if they could diagnose the problem. Using only my personal computer and my cell phone, I called technical support and explained the problem. They tested the line and the modem from their end, then they reset the wireless access password and asked me to check it again. It worked. I informed both clerks of the good news and told them both the password that AT&T created. This password only affects wireless internet which is not used by anybody at city hall. Evidently, the municipal court clerk's computer could not access the internet until she rebooted. I did all this with my equipment and phone and time to help out the city before a COG meeting. What did I get for my willingness to help the city in a jam at no expense to them? This Luddite of an administrator accused me of being a security breach.
Ding! Ding! Ding! It's time for the MarfaGov Word of the Day! Today's word is Luddite:
- Luddite noun a member of any of the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, esp. in cotton and woolen mills, that they believed was threatening their jobs (1811–16). a person opposed to increased industrialization or new technology : a small-minded Luddite resisting progress.
Vilis Inde made a brief presentation on the mayor's personal committee to develop a website for the city. He talked about general information such as contact information, building permit applications, and zoning ordinances. He stressed multiple times that there would be nothing controversial but did not explain what that might include. He was asked if this was an official notification to the city. He replied that it was not and that the work was in its infancy. He was asked who was on the committee: himself, Betsy Burns and some people that preferred to remain anonymous because of hostilities involved in city work. As one who has suffered more than my fair share of hostility, I can understand the desire but disagree with secret committees. If citizens are not willing to stand behind their work in broad daylight, they should stay out of municipal work. Martinez agreed and said it was "totally wrong to go surreptitiously behind people's backs." He reminded the audience of the mayor's previous secret committee to craft an alternative Building Permit Ordinance that favored the mayor's business. Dr. Burns was on that committee also. Vilis said that he would ask the other committee members if they wanted to go public and said that the committee was open to all interested citizens. To see what the mayor has come up with so far, see the city's website complete with cartoon choo-choo and the mayor's idea of a new city slogan.
Vilis spoke frequently about the internet needs of people moving to the area and buying and fixing up property; people like himself in other words. He talked about how to get building permits, how to see how potential purchases are zoned, and the zoning ordinance. He mentioned nothing that would be useful to regular life-long citizens such as the hours for the library and pool and compost area. Nothing about the nutrition center or meals-on-wheels. Nothing about utility bills. In short, he talked about a web site for people interested in buying property and doing construction. If ever a committee needed more diversity, it is this one.
Pam Harris gave a Planning & Zoning report and discussed the need for another volunteer board member, problems with delayed mailings of the agenda to members, construction of a map case for the only copy of the zoning map, the 3rd Street Compound project and the need for a Planned Development District. and issues related to permits for areas subject to flooding.
Ann Dunlap gave a report on the Board of Adjustment. She described variances that were issued and in progress, problem with the administrator incorrectly publishing their agenda in the paper, a letter to P&Z concerning zoning rules for 27-foot wide lots that cause variance requests, problems with the map not being signed. Keller Doss commented on the mayor's refusal to sign the map and asked council to pressure him. He also described some resources that he found for making certified copies of the map once it has been signed. The city has one copy of the map and no backups. Rudy Garcia stated his desire to see a text description of the zones in the ordinance. There was considerable discussion of the mayor's refusal to sign the map. This is one of Marfa's embarrassing inabilities to accomplish even the smallest thing. The map was adopted by council in April 2001 and has been used since then with some changes being made such as the West Heights annexation. It was not signed at the time of adoption as required by law. Mayor Martinez did not sign it because he found some simple errors he wanted fixed first. Mayor Lanman has refused to sign it despite repeated requests. Without a signature, it is not official. The mayor accuses the P&Z of not doing enough yet refuses to do the one thing that he can to help the city move forward.
Rod Ponton spoke of Pete Gallego's bill about water districts and the rights of cities. One issue related to unelected people on a water board having the right to dictate rules to the city. Another issue is the difficulty in exempting cities and allowing El Paso to do as they please with Presidio County land. Council tabled the discussion.
Council approved the action of calling the election for May 12 with 12-hour early voting days on May 1st and May 3rd.
Council approved a four-year contract with Pitney Bowes for postage metering at $102 per month.
Back to the $1.265M sewer plant loan... Flo and Dave will both be in Austin for the meetings on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Marfa's application will be considered by the Texas Water Development Board. If accepted, the city will have 30 days to accept. Public meetings will be held. Not much new information was discussed. Flo also invited all council members and Robert Silva in addition to the engineer. It is hard to understand why he thinks it takes the entire city to sit through these meetings. I guess we have unlimited travel budgets.
On to the expenditure report. This should be the most boring item of all with expenses in line with the budget and revenue coming in as expected and all entries made correctly. But this is Marfa and Sauceda is both administrator and coup d'etat comptroller after forcing Salgado out. It started off quiet with much study of the financial report and then the temperature rose and the heat was on. Sauceda wants to start holding budget workshop meetings in March this year and talked about amending the budget early. Sauceda questioned the need for amending the budget already. Salgado complained about the column labeled "Amended" on the report and asked that it be zero'ed out to reflect no amendment. Sauceda whined about program limitations again and presented a 2004 report that was similar. He did not present 2005 and 2006 reports that showed his illegal budget amendments. Sly.
A council member asked about the $2200 payment to Dan Painter as auditor. It turns out that Painter invoiced Marfa this year for work done last year as a management consultant. This belongs in professional services. Leo slashed that line item because of Sauceda's out of control legal expenses and used that money to pay the public safety office staff member. Council should have discussed this more. Sauceda is charging professional services to the wrong budget line item (audit) because he has already spent way too much money on professional services this year. He is misallocating expenses to hide them from council in order to overspend the budget again.
I asked if the official budget has been released yet. This was due September 30, 2006 but council did not approve the budget until December. Here we are in February and the administrator has not produced the official budget yet. There is a computer printout of the budget. Sauceda said he filed it at the courthouse. The official budget has much more information in it including financial statements, tax information, debt information and charts. Sauceda was TEN MONTHS LATE in producing this last year and only got it done with Dan Painter's help ($2200?). He has yet to produce this document this year FIVE MONTHS LATE and says he is still working on it. Right. I have some beachfront property in Van Horn he can buy... Salgado pushed the issue while the rest of council was silent. Imagine how much work Sauceda could have accomplished on the budget if he did not use office time for travel days.
Leo asked why the January sales tax income was not included in a February report. It turns out that the staff did not enter it promptly in the computer. Salgado questioned Sauceda harshly about checking the report before giving it to council. The conversation went something like this:
Leo: Is there any sales tax in January, where does it show it? It shows zero.
Laura: I just recorded that today, because I reconciled the bank statements today.
Leo: That's another thing I don't understand. When did you deposit that money?
Flo: That money comes direct to us from the state.
Leo: (can't understand recording)
Laura: I just did that today.
Leo: Did you notice that it was short in the reports?
Flo: It's only the 21st.
Leo: It usually comes in on the 10th. So we don't know how much we got for Parks & Rec and for streets?
Laura: For Parks & Rec it was...
Leo: No, I am saying it is not on here, so it is not a complete statement of revenue and expenditures, is that correct?
Flo: Any document that is generated during the fiscal year is unaudited.
Leo: It is not a correct...
Flo: It is unaudited. She stated that it had not been recorded...
Leo: You are not listening to what i am saying. You got money in January but it is not listed here, so this is incorrect. Is that true?
Flo: It's incomplete. The technical word is that it is unaudited.
Leo: Golly. Come on. Give me a break.
Flo: It is a monthly document, it is a floating...
Leo: But it is not correct. It is not a true statement of revenue and expenditures. That is what I am getting at.
Flo: The staff will work harder to make sure all automatic transfers from the state are recorded properly.
Leo: Any other statements or corrections?
(some discussion about income and Parks & Rec and missing the January report.)
Leo: Any other questions about the expenditures report? What's the council's pleasure?
Oscar: I have a problem approving an expenditure report like this when it is incomplete unless we are told in advance that items are missing so that we don't have to look to see if items are missing.
Leo: Do you go over this every month?
Flo: We look at it.
Leo: You look at it. I said, do you go over it?
Flo: As best we can.
Leo: No no no. That's not what I'm asking. Do you go over this report before you put it in the packet?
Flo: We review it and...
Leo: You didn't notice that there was no sales tax?
Flo: No we did not.
Leo: That is the reason we ask for this. You should go over this and find things like this and correct them before it goes into our packet. There is no reason to look at something like this and then ask us to approve it.
Flo: You don't have to approve it. We can bring it back with those changes. And we can add those amounts. That's your decision to make.
Leo.: That's not my point...
Flo: I get your point.
The razzle dazzle of Flo has lost its luster. His recent contract has given him a confidence that exceeds his competence. His obsequiousness has been replaced by cockiness. Can we send him home soon? Marfa deserves better.
Mary Williams motioned to table the matter. Petrosky seconded. All in favor.
Finishing off with citizen comments. Rudy Garcia gave some history of the gas company and the participation of Marfa and Alpine. He asked for guidance from council to make sure he was on the right track. Oscar Martinez supported his efforts.
Keller Doss spoke in support of the city staff that works for Flo and expressed appreciation for their work. He pointed out that management was the cause of problems. I stressed the importance of open records training for elected officials and the administrator as required by law. I also asked council to find funds to hire a comptroller to address all our financial problems. Robert Arber asked council to consider alternative places for showing films during library remodeling. Joanie Marginot introduced herself as new chamber of commerce manager.
Oscar raised an issue that he hoped would come up in citizen comments. It seems the city received a letter from Doug Humble concerning the sewer easement problem. He bought property without realizing a city sewer main crossed the property. No easement can be found from the time before the fire. The city could simply argue that they have the right to continue using that easement, but the city voted to move the sewer main at taxpayer expense and make some consideration to Mr. Humble for the easement for the relocated sewer line near the edge of the property. Now Mr. Humble is asking for five free water hookups and five free sewer hookups. Oscar is concerned. Flo explained that this was part of the consideration that was to be discussed. This is another "friend of the mayor" issue. Council will take this up at a future meeting.
Leo Salgado asked for a motion to adjourn, received it and a second and voted to adjourn. He did a great job as presiding officer. The future looks promising with a new mayor as presiding officer after the election in 79 days.
posted by RobC at 11:42 PM
24 Comments:
Flo filed the City Budget with the County Clerk on Feb. 22 at 4 p.m. That was yesterday right before the meeting.
Bloggers will remember that the city paid Mike Deering about 500-800 to install that city website. It is not supposed to be the Mayor's brain storm of online mapping. For example, by law (what is that) the city/county tax rate is supposed to be posted on the website as well as a description of city officials' responsibilities (We can leave Flo and Lanman off because they don't do anything). Pictures of the elected officials are included as well as web links to appropriate sites as the Chamber of Commerce. The City of Marfa has a train and nothing else. It has been sitting there empty for at least a year.
Rob, it would only be a sign of respect to spell people's names correctly on your blog. A quick look in the phone book would provide "Vilis Inde." I guess that as a citizen, you need not show the respect and accuracy that you demand this of the city.
Most important, however, is your characterization of the city website that volunteers are working on. The website is intended to be helpful to everyone, both citizens and prospective members of the community. The few examples that I provided relating to zoning, building permits, etc. relate to both current citizens and newcomers. This information relates to ANY building by ANYONE in Marfa.
The examples provided were not exclusive.
Unfortunately, you are terribly blinded by your animosity towards Mayor Lanman. Just because I can sit down with the mayor and try to work on something productive should not lead to derision. You treat me so rudely that you do not even have the courtesy to say hello to me on the street. You have simply ignored me when I have greeted you. Good for you, Mr. Citizen of the Year.
Finally, why not greet a volunteer effort in a positive way? If you have concerns, why not raise them privately, rather than addressing them to "Viles" in a rude blog. People will not volunteer in this community if their good deeds and intentions are mocked. I do not need to be abused for my efforts. But thanks Rob Cruelly, you are such a great citizen.
Can you provide me with the city's password? Oh, forget it, I'll just call AT&T and tell them I'm a "citizen" of Marfa as you did. I'm sure that passwords are released to any and all "citizens" of a municipality.
Rob, Mr. Inde -- an old saying comes to mind. No good deed goes unpunished.
Respectfully to Mr. Vilis Inde:
All volunteer work is appreciated. What is not appreciated is the Mayor's frequent cabals called together behind council's back to pursue his own pipe dreams. Regardless of the efficacy of your website, regardless of whom it serves, regardless of the committee's make up, it is perceived, and rightly so, as another of the Mayor's private crusades, like the multimillion municipal landfill he went to Austin and began planning with absolutely NO public input, and the private P&Z/BoA dissolution and reinvention. We don't trust the Mayor. There are a lot of us who don't trust the Mayor. Yes, we are hostile to the Mayor and Flo. They have run roughshod over this city for two years! The council is just now beginning to pay attention.
The Mayor has repeatedly denied the existing P&Z and BoA's suggestions and involvement with "his" mapping project because they don't rubber stamp it. You have walked into a minefield. You can hunker down with the Mayor and curse the blog, or you can realize that perhaps you have been given a skewed perspective by the Mayor. And speaking of hostile behavior, nobody can be more confrontational and retaliatory than the Mayor and Flo. Their personal attacks on Rob Crowley border on official oppression. They have repeatedly tried to fire Corina Brijalba in the Police Department because she speaks out. I have put my money where my mouth is repeatedly and they are still trying to get me fired from my job. Hence no name.
Mr. Inde, I wish you could witness the Mayor's treatment of Ann Dunlap and others who dare contradict him sometime. You would see Mr. Hyde.
Horrors, a security breach! We have the National Guard in town. Call them! They are here on information technology jobs is what they told me. Perfect! Mr. Covert Operation Crowley, huddled furtively over his laptop and cell phone in plain view of the two clerks in the city hall, cracking the code giving up all the electronic information the city has. Wait, what would that be??? Municipal Court records accessed by a telephone number given out by AT&T? Something is radically wrong with Municipal Court if they have accepted having the central modem and a common password! Anything else electronic? Well, the software for the budget which nobody can figure out. The website which has lain fallow all this time. Law states that municipalities should have set up electronic record keeping by this time for city records. Huh? Flo plays Super Sleuth...No. Super Sloth.
We remind the blog of the fate of Betsy Burns, who mistakenly agreed to one of the Mayor's private projects. Before it was over, she had been pretty roughly treated. Not because of her personally, but because the Mayor refuses to listen to anybody and council meetings become shouting matches.
Ridiculous...The problem arouse when Mr. Inde stated in no uncertain terms that the members of his group wanted to remain secret-!! THIS statement of secrecy is what caused the controversy last night and throughout this administration; secrets and back door deals to friends. Topped off by vindictive slander to those who have the democratic right and guts to speak up. Bravo to those who speak up, those who see secret deals being made, those who want transparency, those who feel critical journalism makes this country a beautiful balanced place.
Mr. Inde, to you and your unnamed group the light in Marfa is beautiful don't hide behind your friend and closed doors. If a simple unintentional misspelling of your very unusual name has you in such a tizzy, just relax make the straight forward correction, I wish I had a dime for every time my name was inadvertently misspelled.
WAIT-A-MINUTE !! The secret web-site group states, they are not going to put anything "controversial on "their" website. the first thing they are planning are things like building permits.. What rock is Mr. VI (so I don't spell wrong) under ?? In case you don't know the building permit issue IS the most controversial issue in the past year, I hope you are simply a victem (augh-0 a vole out of place) of a some smooth talking snake oil salesman.
Dear Vilis Inde,
Welcome back to the blog Mr. inde. I sincerely appreciate your contributions and your willingness to put your name behind your words. Sadly, some people have had their jobs threatened by Dave and Flo for exercising their first amendment rights.
I apologize for misspelling your name in two places. I am not using a very sophisticated spell checker. Please do give me credit for spelling your full name correctly in one place. I corrected that mistake after visiting your website at http://www.indejacobs.com/ but unfortunately missed the other two spelling errors. I finished that blog entry at 2AM. My spelling gets a little sloppy after midnight. You?
Regarding your slighted feelings about greetings on the street, I have no idea what you are talking about. Knowing your sensitivities, I will make sure to greet you as enthusiastically as you greeted me last night.
I stand by my comments about the website 100 percent. I call it as i see it. You talked only about building and zoning issues that are near and dear to your heart. I described the narrow interests of your presentation accurately. You gave specific examples of people from out of town using the website to see how properties are zoned before they buy them. Shall we listen to the recording together? You did not describe many features that benefitted lifelong residents of Marfa. Am I wrong?
I imagine you will take my constructive criticism to heart. Regarding your secret mayoral committee, welcome to the mayor's world of partisan politics and backroom deals. Be careful where you throw stones. It does not look good to have secret committees. Period.
You said that the committee is open to participation by all citizens. I have lots of good ideas and have been providing agenda information to citizens for six months. I would love to participate. Please post the schedule for all of your meetings here or post them with sufficient notice at city hall so all can participate. I look forward to working with you towards a productive solution. OK?
I don't agree with you that city business should be done "privately." I am sorry that you consider me rude and cruel. Get to know me and you might change your opinion. Be careful about taking everything the mayor says at face value. My comments about the mayor are my opinion and based on fact. Public criticism of public officials and their misconduct and mistakes is a fundamental part of our democracy. Do you have another system of government? I don't have animosity towards Lanman. I think he has done a poor job as mayor and has pursued partisan politics that favor his friends and attack his critics. Outside of politics, I think he is a charming man. He asked me to compromise my ethics for his financial gain. I refused. You are witnessing the result. Don't go on the attack when you do not know the story.
I look forward to working with you and demonstrating to the community how citizens can participate in an open process for the good of the city even if they disagree on politics.
Best regards,
Rob Crowley
P.S. I understand you are a friend of the mayor. You are the one that prompted Sauceda to name the citizen. It didn't matter, I was on my way to the podium when you asked. I wonder if perhaps you had been tipped off about this "security breach..."
Touchy touchy! Rob misspelled Inde's first name one time, easy to do with a vowel laden name.
Yeah, we're pretty knee jerk hostile, all right, having watched the Mayor and Flo illegally buy doors and cars, give illegal raises, defy the Election Code, defy the budget calendar, misspend, overspend, outspend and curry favor with a few individuals who have not been paying much attention to city goings on.
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This is the bunker mentality of the Mayor. We've seen him network around town. Where do we see him? With the folks he feels safe with, the ones who listen to him whine about how maltreated he is. I kid you not, this was told to me by someone who should know better: "the Mayor has tried to do so many innovative things and the Council has just shot him down." Thank goodness or he would by now have purchased 800 acres next to the Hip O ranch on preservation grassland over the Valentine acquifer right on an earthquake fault (very true!) and put in a municipal land fill of 30 acres. Flo at least has the support group of one in Oscar, who publicly berates him yet gave him another contract. I can just see that good old compa routine. "Flo, I'm gonna have to beat you up in public so I can run for Mayor but here's your 65K and the 27K severance."
Anybody see Hizzoner at the Post Office? The cafes? The grocery store? The places where local peole go? I wouldn't say the Friends of the Mayor is a select group...it is the only group that is warm and fuzzy to his needy self.
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Rob, your remark about "the administration is at fault" is the understatement of the year.
Let's see, back to Municipal Court, didn't the City spend a bunch of money buying a software program, which, when installed, would have had to have a password to it????
What did they think you were going to do, hack into Play Station 2?
Here's a question to Mr. Inde, who feels he has been so rudely treated: Where was your sponsor, the Mayor? He is off doing Mardi Gras in Austin. Will he come back in time to go back with Flo in one car, or is he billing his travel to Austin on a personal longer-than-a-weekend trip to the City???
Or better yet, has Flo gone to Corpus and will meet the Mayor in Austin on the flip-flop, as we say?
Regarding anon at 8:35AM. I wonder how familiar you are with the technical issues you addressed. I have no idea about security for the computers in use by the city. I don't have access to them. Though I have never even looked, I assume that they are set up with the proper network security, individual passwords, and firewalls. If not, the administration is at fault. The only password that I had was the password for accessing the internet through the city's wireless modem. I used it before when I was asked to serve on a subcommittee of the finance committee and was making presentations to city council. That password does not give me access to properly configured computers at the city. Technically, it was not much different from using the city's phone to place a local call. I know of at least two other citizens who have helped the city with computer issues and had the same access. Are you implying that I have malicious intent? Be careful. I was simply helping the city with a technical issue in an urgent situation at no cost to the city after the regular tech person was unable to fix the problem. I did everything in plain site and informed two clerks before and after of all the details. You are grasping at straws to try and make me look bad for helping the city. After I helped fix the problem, the city had the opportunity to change any passwords as they desired. Unfortunately, they do not have much technical skill. [deleted senence] The facts support everything I did. Give me a call and I will help you understand the technical details.
To the many Bloggers from Vilis Inde.
1)There was nothing "secret" about trying to create a website for the city. If it were secret, it would not have been on the agenda??? The idea was to advise the council and the community of the volunteer effort. This would provide a means to get input from anyone who wished to provide comments.
2)Please excuse the fact that I talked to a few people about their thoughts about a city website. They specifically said that they do not want to be involved in the politics of hostility that govern Marfa. This has been the response of many when they have been asked to volunteer for some position.
3)The link that Rob refers people to with the "choo-choo" train does not represent the efforts of the myself or the group. My work was far more sophiticated, included photos of Marfa, phone numbers, links to various entities, including educational and religious organizations. It was a nice beginning.
4)Rob: Construction and zoning are relevant to EVERYBODY - both current citizens and future citzens. Yes,I have a personal interest in these matters, but working on a website that would set forth the Zoning Ordinance, along with other useful information for citizens is hardly done out of self-interest. The ordinance is what it is.
5)Rob: we can listen to the recordings together if you like. But the examples were by no means exclusive, nor did I indicate this.
6)I will refrain from any additional work on the website and will not allow my work product to be used by the city. Then, I hope that the ridiculous allegations will cease.
7)I apologize to the council, the administration and the Marfa community for volunteering to create a website. Clearly, I should not have agreed to help on a project that was raised by the Mayor and I thought could be helpful to all.
8)I will also resign from the Planning & Zoning committee so that people will avoid thinking that I am only on the committee because of my self-interest.
8)I have NO PRIVATE AGENDA for Marfa and will simply retreat to being a new citizen with an art gallery. I felt that because I had practiced law for 15 years, I could provide some assistance to the community. Clearly, one can not do this without being under a cloud of suspicion and subject to various specious allegations.
SO - find some new volunteers and good luck with all of the work that needs to be done.
VI
Help me out, bloggers. The Mayor refuses to sign the existing map we should be using, thus legitimizing it, because it is not the website he has been trying to initiate for two years?
Not to be a Luddite, but it seems reasonable in a town this size, even given the continuing boom, that the logical thing to do would be to sign the existing map, get the permitting process established, get P&Z up and running and THEN develop the website.
No, no, no 1:53! That is not innovative enough, not progressive enough! The Mayor wants something RAZZLEDAZZLE in place to mark his passing.
I thought the meeting last night was great! Good job, Leo. Good job, Council. Good job, citizens.
It was reminiscent of meetings of yore (two years back) when we did not have to deal with the atmosphere of animosity so prevalent now. The only thing different was the absence of Lanman.
Humm...do you suppose...could THE Great Lanman be the source of the problem? Hopefully we will get our town back on election day.
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