February
16, 2006
For Whom the Bell
Tolls
By Jack D. McNamara
Anna Monclova
describes her 21 months in office on the Alpine City Council as similar
to that of a contestant on the television show “Survivor.”
In a lengthy piece on the editorial page of the Alpine Avalanche last
week Monclova rebutted an earlier column by the departed former city
manager, Karen Philippi, who left Alpine in early December. Safely in
Royse City, near Dallas, Philippi lashed out at the council members who
had voted to fire her almost exactly a year ago—Anna Monclova and
Avinash Rangra.
Monclova, who represents Ward 2, was elected in May 2004 over three
other challengers. She said at the time “I’m ready to work as a team
with the mayor and other council members to achieve positive results
for the community.”
Little did she know how difficult that would be.
Anna Monclova is perhaps unique among recent council persons — she is a
young Hispanic mother with a family and she works for a living. She was
born and raised in Alpine. The other council members are retired from
various agencies public and private — Mayor Mickey Clouse, Ward 3
Representative Burnis Lawrence, and Ward 4 Representative Manuel Payne.
Or they are independent businessmen — Ward 5 Representative Bob Brewer
and Ward 1 Representative Avinash Rangra (who is also a tenured Sul
Ross professor). Monclova has worked for more than 15 years in local
tax offices and now is employed at a major Alpine business, Big Bend
Telephone Company.
Had she sat down and meekly followed the blind precedents of her
predecessors she might, after a long period of submission, have become
acceptable to the go-along politics of Alpine and Brewster County’s
self-anointed ruling elite.
Instead she looked at the numbers and the policies and asked questions.
Our favorite moment was in fall 2004 when she tossed city manager
Philippi’s 40 pages of annual budget back to the city manager and told
the $100,000 former meter department head from Houston to do it again.
Philippi could not
balance a budget so the council had to do it in both 2004 and 2005.
Time and time again Monclova has dissected the city’s financial affairs
with diligence and skill. Each time the mayor and the city manager
bellowed “micromanaging!” In Alpine you are a micromanager if you can
add or subtract. You are a micromanager if you tell the truth. And
worst, you are a micromanager if you challenge the freeloaders who
daily come for subsidies from the public treasury.
I have been watching and writing at various intervals about the Alpine
City Council for about 20 years now. Mrs Monclova is articulate and
intelligent and she does the work rather than lazily relying on the
city staff. What is very unusual, however, is that she has dared the
retaliation from the established class of insiders who fear above all
an elected official who seeks the truth and has the courage to tell it
when she sees it.
Well done to the Avalanche for publishing the column.
Monclova presumably submitted her column to the Avalanche on Tuesday
noon like all the commentators. Then she went to Alpine City Council
for the first regular meeting of February. It was a boring but
productive meeting until almost 9 p.m. For the first time in a long
time the council and the staff completed all the agenda items. During
council members comments at the end of the agenda Monclova described
the meeting as “productive” and commended the council for avoiding
childish antics. She spoke too soon.
Mayor Clouse, taking notice of an agenda item for a closed session
regarding the selection of a new city manager, asked Interim City
Attorney Rod Ponton if she could vote on the selection. He said no, and
rather gently pointed out to the mayor the body of legal opinions
rendered over the past year on the 1993 Charter. Mayor Clouse
then stalled the normal progress of the council into executive session
and proceeded to read an email Brewer had sent to seven finalists in
the selection process.
Brewer and Monclova were delegated by the council to winnow down the 30
applicants for invitations to interview and that result was the reason
for the executive session and Brewer intended to discuss the email in
executive session.
After stating the email was the “worst” she had ever seen Clouse
proceeded to read the short introduction and several statements of fact
in the email.
At that point an
awful clanging was set off. The city alarm in the hall adjoining the
council chambers threatened to break the eardrums of all present.
Clouse read on, though only a few words could be heard through the din.
Several city staff employees rushed to the hall to silence the alarm,
which they finally did. Clouse kept reading.
I was on the front row so I suppose I heard as much as anyone. The
email was published in the Avalanche last Thursday and the only unusual
thing about it is that it tells the truth.
The Avalanche wrote the story but failed to report a Brewer email later
Tuesday evening which said six of the seven finalists had responded nor
did the Avalanche report the clanging bell. These slips in news
reporting and the editing omissions on the story and Monclova’s column
is dubious journalism. Clouse, echoed by Burnis Lawrence and one
citizen, deplored telling the truth to prospective candidates because
it did not boost Alpine.
Alpine doesn’t need boosting. We need fixing.
What particularly exercised Mayor Clouse was Brewer’s statement, “We
(meaning Alpine) have a McDonald’s but no Wal-Mart.” Mayor Clouse
perhaps has friends among those who are constantly trying to introduce
a Wal-Mart to destroy our Mom and Pop businesses. (I have emailed the
question to Mayor Clouse but have not yet received an answer.)
Clouse’s tirade went on so long that it was necessary to recess the
meeting until the following evening when the city manager item was
resolved. Not resolved was a long agenda item which proposed to discuss
in executive session Philippi’s shortcomings which have cost the city
thousands of dollars.
So — as the prophet says — this is the shape of things to come. We can
foresee a city election which pits the boosters and the schemers
against those who ask questions and demand accountability from the
well-paid city staff. It will be a bloody debate but trust in the
outcome. •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas Feb. 16,
2006.)
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