January 11, 2007
Hello
2007
By
Jack D. McNamara
We ventured outside for food toward the end of the prolonged
Christmas-New Year’s holidays.
The streets were deserted in the early afternoon except for a few
private businesses beginning to stir.
As we turned west on Holland Avenue/Highway 90, we were confronted head
on by two young doe galloping east down the middle of the avenue.
The two or three vehicles traveling west stopped respectfully to give
the deer the right of way. I shouted at the deer to abandon any
expectation of finding company at the Brewster County Courthouse
because no one was there. The deer and I shared a libertarian moment in
the realization that this might not be an altogether bad thing at all.
A couple of blocks later we looked toward the railroad tracks and saw a
dark green 19th century-styled car at the end of the halted east-bound
Amtrak train. Lace curtains hung in the windows, and painted in gold
gilt on the sides of the car were the words “Patrón Tequila
Express” of the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad. As we drove closer we
saw a young woman park her sports car and leap onto the rear platform
of the Tequila Express and begin to speak excitedly into her cell phone.
Clearly civic duties were not the principal concern of those on the
Alpine streets that day.
In the outside world it seemed that the inhabitants were concerned with
only the civic sendoff for former President Gerald R. Ford. Very nearly
every public official still alive from the 1974-1976 term of President
Ford was on funeral duty. From Southern California to Washington to his
final resting place in Michigan we all watched the ceremonies and
ruminated on what it all meant. (For some of us it was yet another
opportunity to “wallow in Watergate.”)
By the week’s end we knew. The U.S. Congress began convening and
suddenly we had the first ever woman Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, Mrs. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, California. All
Gerry Ford wanted was to be Speaker but instead he became an unelected
vice president and president.
The victorious Democrats, the opposition party since 1994, took over
the House and the U.S. Senate. This is a rare event in American
politics.
Before their first week in the majority was out the Democrats
proclaimed their agenda. Ethics in Congress, an increase in the minimum
wage, fixing the prescription drug scandal, restoration of fiscal
integrity to the federal government, immigration reform, and … Iraq.
This is also unusual. A foreign policy question compounded with a war
not only swung an upset in a general election but that election
actually affected the policy dictated by the President and the previous
majority party Republicans.
These events will dominate our pubic lives in the coming year.
Perhaps because war is so important (and expensive) we can look on the
political struggle for control of the Texas House of Representatives
with some humor.
Republican Tom Craddick of Midland, a member of the House since 1968
and speaker since 2002, faces an insurgency of his own. There will be
consequences.
There are clearly consequences for us because we spent much of the
holidays trying to get a coherent answer from the responsible Austin
offices — Does the Texas Legislature comply with the Texas Open
Meetings Act? Or to put it another way, have they bothered to read
Judge Robert Junell’s legal opinion stating (in our view) that ALL
Texas elected and appointed officials are required to comply with the
law?
On the local front we have our own political reshuffling.
At the first meeting of the Alpine City Council on January 2, the
council and the staff moved through their agenda in a sprightly
fashion. Few citizens were interested and none spoke in three public
hearings.
At the end of the short, half-hour session the council heard “comments”
from various members of the staff. City Attorney Rod Ponton has been
reporting that the long-running lawsuit against the city by Emily Scown
was “almost,” or “about to be” settled.
On January 2, Ponton said it was settled in the sense that 394th State
District Judge Kenneth DeHart had accepted the city’s motion for
partial summary judgment and dismissing Mrs. Scown’s action.
Indeed the judge acted on December 15th, as the court file shows. Mrs.
Scown may appeal, of course, but the decision is based on an article of
the Texas Constitution and a 2006 Texas Supreme Court decision.
Cities cannot give free water.
This court decision complements a long effort to identify and account
for the loss of millions of gallons of water annually by the city. The
struggle has been accompanied by a level of skullduggery and conflict
memorialized by and attributed to frontier humorist Mark Twain —
“Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.”
Ponton referred in his comments to 79 problematical water accounts, of
about 2700 total. Presumably those accounts can now be settled by the
city on the city’s terms.
The city staff — meaning City Manager “Chuy” Garcia, Ponton and
Utilities Director Cindy Hollander — have located the problem (or some
of it) by identifying the problem accounts.
But it is up to the city council to decide how the city will deal with
this. And the current city council is not the same council who fought
to identify and account for the lost water. Some of those who
discovered and detailed the problem were first indicted for their
efforts and then defeated in the May 2006 election — Katy
Elms-Lawrence, Anna Monclova and Bob Brewer.
This is called irony.
From the victors last November 7 we hear the phrase “culture of
corruption” to describe the vanquished Congressional Republicans. But
we should not become too smug and self-satisfied. We have our own
little problems right here, a paradise where deer roam the streets in
broad daylight.
Don’t we? •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas January 11, 2007.)
|
Archives