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May 17, 2005
Rangra
Wins
By Jack D. McNamara
Over
here on the other side of Paisano Pass the news is that Dr. Avinash
Rangra won reelection to a third two-year term on the Alpine City
Council in Ward 1, the north-central ward. He defeated challengers
Craig Frye and Manfred Fritsche with 150 votes to their respective 100
votes and 10 votes.
Diana
Asgeirsson ran unopposed for Ward 5 and was reelected to her second
term. Gerald Raun also faced no opposition and will replace Burnis
Lawrence as Ward 3 representative.
Rangra won
this election (we are amazed to say) over the opposition of Alpine’s
Brewster County Courthouse Lawyer Establishment. During his term on the
city council Rangra has drawn seemingly persistent antipathies of 83rd
District Attorney Frank Brown; Brewster County Judge Val Clark Beard
and her husband, Groundwater District Chairperson Tom Beard; and County
Attorney Steve Houston.
Alpine’s
city charter was adopted in 1993 and divides our little city into five
small wards, each of about 1200 residents. When the charter was adopted
there were some fears that not enough candidates would run and over the
years turnout in both voters and candidates has been disappointing. But
not in Ward 1. All Rangra’s contests have been vigorous contests with
registered voter turnout at about 20 to 25 percent.
One of several things
Rangra did right was to support Democrat Ciro Rodriquez in the November
congressional election and the December runoff against the incumbent
Republican U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla. None of the listed
political establishment provided any visible support to Rodriguez, who
won Brewster County by a narrow margin in the runoff. The Beards
provided long-term support to Bonilla with more than $20,000 in
campaign contributions in recent years, according to published reports
of the Federal Election Commission (www.fec.gov).
Rangra is
also one of the earliest and most outspoken opponents of the current La
Entrada al Pacifico (LEAP) initiative. As a Sul Ross State University
chemistry professor, he brings a certain scientific expertise to the
debate as he did in the opposition to a proposed bentonite processing
plant east of Alpine. Rangra uses his council position as a bully
pulpit for promoting quality of life issues in the greater Alpine area.
This
advocacy has been most apparent in the long running Alpine water
distribution and supply debate. “Lost” water, meaning water pumped but
not accounted for in water bills, amounts to millions of gallons
annually.
In late
2004 a majority of the city council became dissatisfied with the work
of Alpine’s longtime engineer, GSWW of Midland, Austin and other
locations. After a seemingly endless series of public hearings and
workshops, the council set out to hire a new engineer. This sort of
hiring a second, third or whatever number of experts to solve a
municipal problem is entirely legal, at least so far as the council was
previously advised by their City Attorney Steve Houston (also the
elected county attorney).
That
course of action was opposed by one councilmember, the mayor, and the
city manager. The controversy escalated when the dissident council
member, Mrs. Nancy DeWitt, obtained more than 100 emails from Rangra’s
Sul Ross account via the Texas Public Information Act.
On January
20, 2005 the now defunct weekly Desert-Mountain Times published a front
page story, “Anti-Philippi faction hurting area’s image, Beard says.”
The only city councilmember identified in Mrs. Beard’s tirade was
Avinash Rangra.
Setting
aside for the moment the question of precisely what legitimate concern
the county judge might have in the operation of a city council, the
article was nicely timed for a Brewster County grand jury. (The article
is linked on our Website www.nimbynews.com under “TOMA Talk.”)
In
February 2005 Avinash Rangra and Katie Elms-Lawrence (the 2003-2005
Ward 3 representative) were indicted on evidence presented by 83rd
District Attorney Frank Brown to a Brewster County grand jury for
exchanging emails. The councilpersons communicated the need to schedule
a meeting of the Alpine City Council for the purpose of hiring a new
city engineering consultant. Rangra and Elms retained attorneys Dick
DeGuerin and Rod Ponton and fought the indictment. DA Brown moved to
dismiss the indictment and the defendants demanded a trial. The court
refused their demand but ruled the indictments should be expunged. DA
Brown has appealed that order to the El Paso Court of Appeals where he
lost and now has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Five Texas judges
have found the original indictments against Rangra and Elms presented
“no probable cause” that they committed any crime against the people of
Texas, a proposition with which 150 voters in Ward 1 apparently agreed
last Saturday.
Nevertheless,
the indictments were conveniently timed just before the May 2005
election.
The effect
of Mrs. Beard’s inappropriate article and the indictments persuaded
Katie Elms-Lawrence to abandon elected office. Having won a three-way
race in 2003, she did not run for reelection in 2005.
In 2006,
similar tactics by courthouse politicians viciously and unfairly
encumbered another member of the city council majority of October 2004,
Mrs. Anna Monclova, and she was narrowly defeated in a bid for
reelection.
Alpine
Mayor Mickey Clouse has made plain that she intended the defeat and
removal of the three council members (Rangra, Elms and Monclova) who
voted to discharge the city manager in 2004.
The
indicted Avinash Rangra drew a credible opponent in 2005, Sam Witt. But
Rangra won narrowly by six votes, 135-129.
This year
Alpine blossomed with signs for Craig Frye.
We
suggest Dr. Avinash Rangra won because he is seen by voters as a man
unafraid to ask questions. His questions have cost him several broken
windshields and thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Perhaps that is
the message of this election. Brewster County politics in the 21st
century very much resemble politics in the previous centuries — a
constant grasping for control by the exercise of retaliatory political
tactics.
We gladly
invite any of those Brewster County courthouse politicians to respond
to what we have written. We will cheerfully surrender the space. •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas May 17, 2007.)
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