TOMA Talk
                                               

January 20, 2005 
   
  The Desert-Mountain Times   
  
  "Anti-Philippi faction hurting area's   
image,  Beard says"

     Judge Robert Jenevein's case
         
Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
       
(http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5Cpub%5C06/06-50368-
                                                           CV0.wpd.pdf)


The 83rd District Democratic Runoff
and Trial Series, May 23, 2000
                    
The 83rd District Election
Frontier DA Series 2008


        Count the votes!

    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/brewstercountyvotes


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  08-06-08    Democracy in Action




















            
                     
Written and published by

Jack D. McNamara
 P.O. Box 1445 Alpine, Tx  79831
USA

  Phone: (432) 837-5619

Copyright 2008

  Nimby Enterprises, Inc.
 All rights reserved
  

 
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There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
P.J. O'Rourke
US humorist, journalist,
& political commentator
(1947-)

            
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain
without thunder and lightning. 
           
  — Frederick Douglas
(1817-1895)

A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

— Justice John Marshall
(1755-1835)
US Supreme Court Chief Justice

Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is exer- cised, but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised.
John Dickenson
(1732-1808)
Source: Farmer’s Letters, 1767

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.
— Justice Hugo L. Black

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Samuel Butler

The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permit- ted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.

Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been obtained by
reason and humanity over error and oppression.

                  — James Madison

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

 William O. Douglas

A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of
nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thous
and bayonets.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. 

Benjamin Frankli

August 6, 2008

Democracy in Action
By Jack D. McNamara


The Alpine City Council met Tuesday at 6 p.m. for another marathon session of contradictions, inconsistent assertions and the parade of offended politicos’ egos.

The subject? The long delayed animal shelter project. How long? Since May 2003 in my direct observation.

In the instant case of the August 5 meeting, an action was actually taken.

After a long and heated discussion, the council voted unanimously to approve a “conceptual” plan for a new animal shelter on the east side of Alpine near where the old Marathon road intersects with Highway 90.

Two plans were available for the audience and the council. A surveyed plat of the 38 acres recently acquired from the General Land Office (GLO) was on display in the front of the room. Amit Rangra, currently the head of the Animal Advisory Board, presented the two plans and discussed them (including a price of perhaps $600,000). Councilman Gerald Raun polled the large number of Alpine Humane Society (AHS) members present and we discovered Raun and the AHS were in agreement with the second plan presented. `Raun made the motion and rookie Mayor Jerry Johnson moved the question along through the motion’s second from Councilman Avinash Rangra and the council voted unanimously to proceed with the project.
Sadly, however, Avinash Rangra found it necessary before the vote to launch into a long, emotional and unnecessary defense of his son Amit’s role in the project.

Amit Rangra needed no defense but neither did the Alpine Humane Society and their current president, Glenn Ramsdale.  The Alpine Humane Society members are responsible citizens petitioning their presumably responsible elected officials.

This particular chapter of what the Alpine Avalanche calls a “saga” was initiated at the council meeting of July 1, 2008. Gerald Raun placed an item on the agenda. Neither the Humane Society nor the Advisory Board was present at the July 1 meeting.

The minutes of the meeting, approved Tuesday night, very competently describe what happened. Councilman Rangra used the July 1 occasion to seize the initiative to criticize the Humane Society.

 “10.  Discuss and Consider setting date for workshop with City Council,Animal Advisory Board and Humane Society regarding the Proposed Animal Shelter. (G.Raun) — Councilor Raun said he put this item on the Agenda because he is beginning to get tired of waiting for the Animal Shelter project to be completed. He said he would like the groups to get together in no longer than 30 days and wants to know exactly where each board stands. Councilor Rangra said the Animal Advisory Board was asked to come up with a recommendation since the Council was not getting any solid information from the Humane Society. He said the Council decided that we needed to have an Animal Advisory Board composed of five members, one from each ward, a veterinarian, animal control officer and one council member. He said the board consisted of eight members. He said if you look at the list there are ten members. He said the Animal Advisory Board is waiting for the architect to supply the latest drawing. He said the City of Alpine, a few months ago, decided to apply for a grant. He said he does not know what purpose would be served by having another meeting with the Humane Society. He said the issue here is that the Council should go ahead and build the shelter on its own instead of waiting on anyone else. Councilor Raun asked if Councilor Rangra was suggesting that rather than trying to talk this out with the Humane Society that the City takes on this job itself to do it. Councilor Rangra said the City needs to go ahead and proceed. He said if someone wants to help us out their help would be welcome. He said right now it is the tail wagging the dog. Councilor Raun withdrew his item from the agenda.”

Two weeks later, on July 15, the council sent the Animal Advisory Board to walk the plank by the novel expedient of nullifying the membership of the city’s own Animal  Advisory Board ordinance created five years prior. A dozen members of the AHS were in the audience that night and were denied the right to speak to the issue when the agenda item was called.

Tuesday night, August  5, the council  was not particularly responsive to those members of the AHS who were present at the meeting. There was, however, a long series of questions and conciliatory remarks.

George Bradley of the AHS asked early, “do you plan to shut us out?” He said it was great that the city is moving forward but pointed out a defect in the plan presented Tuesday night (no dog runs included).

Joanna Cowell asked “Why the paranoia” of the council toward the AHS and recommended the council amend the ordinance to comply with state law by adding an Alpine Humane Society member to the Animal Advisory Board.

Nancy Beckwith, vice president of the AHS, pointed out that she had 15 years’ veterinary experience and asked to be appointed to the new animal advisory board … but she was refused.

\When Amit Rangra displayed his two diagrams the questions became less political and more to the point — how many animals?

Raun said he had come to an AHS meeting two months ago and asked them about their plans. He still had not received an answer, he said.

But both the mayor and Raun insisted the city council was not trying to start a war with the AHS. “Something has to be done,” Raun said, and “we (the city) are going to do it.”

Joanna Cowell said “We haven’t heard from the city,” and Councilman Raun answered with a smile, “That’s why we’re here tonight.”

Glenn Ramsdale pointed out that the “plan” was to be given to the city attorney “five months ago” and wasn’t as of “a few days ago.”

The plan for the building available at the city offices through Tuesday was apparently one of six revisions referred to by Amit Rangra in his presentation. The two plans presented Tuesday night were given to the city staff at 4 p.m. Tuesday, two hours before the meeting. Indeed, the Humane Society nor much of anyone else had seen the plans presented for action by the council because Amit Rangra had not received them from the architect.

This is hardly an unusual circumstance with any of Alpine’s local governments. Amit Rangra needed no defense from his father who appointed him to the Animal Advisory Board in the first place and then reappointed him Tuesday. That position happens to be in the crucible of an intense and ongoing public debate.

Avinash Rangra protested that his son had been “vilified.”

The problem here is the same as it was in 2003. The Alpine Animal Shelter is a disgrace. Do you want to live in a community which treats the most helpless inhumanely?

Mayor Johnson and Councilman Raun moved this project forward last night. The Alpine Humane Society members in attendance stuck to their guns, were respectful and conciliatory. The city staff and Amit Rangra did what is required of them. The project as it now stands was competently presented, televised on Channel 5 and the conceptual plan for the building  completed.

It remains for the council to amend the ordinance by adding the AHS to the advisory board as is clearly the legislative intent of the state statute concerning animal shelters.

Councilman Avinash Rangra, our councilman in Ward 1, was not helpful. We have supported him through thick and thin but if he continues to unfairly berate the Alpine Humane Society he should recuse himself from this issue. •