A reader criticized the blog this week writing “Guess because there is such hatred toward the city manager and certain city reps on this blog there is no way possible for anyone to advance a counter argument.”
Cato had posted Proposed charter amendments where you can read the exchange.
I commented that I had not seen any hatred at all on the blog. We go out of our way to focus on issues, not the individuals involved.
I try to focus on actions and behavior, not personalities. A long time ago I learned that I am the one who loses the most if I hate someone.
I think that if I spend some time writing about the kinds of actions that I am concerned about, some may come to better understand the issues.
In that spirit let me start with this email (left click on it to make it larger):
What we have here is an email from the city manager to the mayor pro tempore June 26, 2012 at 3:14 PM. That was during a city council meeting. The mayor was not there. The discussion was about the proposed ball park and the issues surrounding it. Many members of the public wanted to speak and have city council consider their views.
The city manager is telling, not asking, the mayor pro tempore “tell council we need to vote and move on”.
Our city charter makes the city manager “responsible to the Council for the administration of all City affairs placed in the Manager’s charge by or under this Charter”.
The city manager works for city council. The city council works for the voters. The city manager is not elected. The city manager should not tell council what to do. It must be the other way.
The city manager is a city employee. City council is a legislative body. The charter says council “shall have legislative powers, and the power and duty to select, direct, and regularly evaluate the City Manager …”.
Council is in charge. The proper position of the city manager is to ask, and advise, not tell.
At 5 hours and 30 minutes into the recording we hear the mayor pro tempore say “This is the end …” just as she was told to do.
Secret discussions
Also troubling is that we have proof that city council members use electronic devices to communicate during meetings of city council that are supposed to be open. Current Texas law does not specifically prohibit this practice, but in my opinion it should. The courts do too, I quote from Tal Kopan’s post when the Texas supreme court refused to hear a case that would have invalidated provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act:
In 2005, two Alpine, Texas, city council officials were indicted for violating the Texas Open Meetings Act over emails they exchanged, which the government argued constituted a closed meeting. Though charges were later dropped, some of the officials involved in the email exchange sued, saying the act was a restriction of free speech, overbroad and vague.
The district court and circuit court both upheld the statute, rejecting the plaintiff’s claims.
The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit held that not only is the law content-neutral and constitutional, it also serves an important purpose for open government.
“Here, government is not made less transparent because of the messages of private speech about public policy: Transparency is furthered by allowing the public to have access to government decisionmaking. This is true whether those decisions are made by cogent empirical arguments or coin-flips. The private speech itself makes the government less transparent regardless of its message,” opinion from Judge Jerry Smith stated.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, who defended the act, issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s move to let the lower court ruling stand as a win for open government.
“Open, transparent government is fundamental to our democratic system of government. Today’s decision ensures that the Texas Open Meetings Act will continue holding elected officials accountable to conduct the taxpayers’ business in the light of day and in a manner that informs the public about government decision-making,” Abbott said.
As is customary, the Supreme Court did not offer any reasoning for its refusal to hear the case.
We deserve better — in this case we got it
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Okay so there is not hatred toward the person Joyce Wilson who happens to be city manager. There is an intense dislike apparently of manager-council form of government. I guess you like the strong mayor form of government that brought us public corruption. Go there again – I can guarantee we will have corruption. Under strong mayor – Cook would get his legal bills paid – guaranteed.
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MEK,
Actually I think that the council-manager (I put council first since they should be in charge) form of government could work if everyone kept their proper places.
I have not commented that the current city government is corrupt. If you know of something let us know.
Are you saying that our recent strong mayors were corrupt?
How can you guarantee corruption? That does not sound good.
I’m not trying to make you angry. It just seems to me that you are reading things into what has been written here that the authors did not intend.
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Do you like a strong mayor form of government because it was likely advantageous to you in some way? When a responsible non-political person came in to run the day to day operations of the city things obviously went south for you or others that enjoyed strong mayor form of government.
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The premise that a city manager is “non-political”, simply because that person was not elected to their office, is neither rational nor realistic. There are “politics” in almost all organizations, including churches, and those politics influence decisions. When a city manager aligns himself or herself with the opinions and wishes of certain elected officials or special interests, the manager is clearly acting politically. Joyce Wilson’s petty, mean-spirited and condescending behavior toward certain council members and dissenting citizens is anything but responsible.
You allege that Brutus was in some way benefiting personally from the strong mayor form of government. If your logic is sound, one can only conclude that you continue to aggressively defend Wilson because you are benefiting from your relationship with her and her team. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt is you will be so kind as to give others the same benefit of the doubt.
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I’m okay with the manager-council form of government, but I’m certainly not happy with many of their decisions and how they govern, manage, and attempt to disenfranchise voters and taxpayers. Hypothetically, the manager-council form of government is also no guarantee against corruption, especially if council members cater to special interests and the Mayor can cast a tie-breaking vote.
City managers, like many holding positions in federal and state government, are also not immune to acting dishonestly, particularly if they are trying to position themselves for future gigs in the private sector.
Regardless the form of government, there is no guaranteed immunization against corruption, which is precisely why we should persistently question those in power. Unless we do, there is an even greater risk that they will forget who they serve.
I truly hope MEK will continue to stay involved in the dialogue on this blog. Civil debate is great!
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As an involved voter on the local, state and national level there is always a time where I disagree completely with the elected officials or the bureaucrats running the government. No two people will ever agree 100% on every issue. To single out the CM and blame that position for everything wrong with El Paso is not right. Council votes – not the CM.
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Anyone who would like to go back to a strong mayor form of government should remember that it is chaos. Every time we get a new mayor, the city changes direction. And if that mayor isn’t a strong person, direction gets changed every time he / she gets a call from an angry constituent. The City Manager form of government isolates the Mayor and City Council somewhat from these knee jerk decisions. Also, the City Manager is an government administrative professional who does a better job on hiring department heads. Previous to our City Manager form of government, we had some of the worst department heads imaginable. Mayors, who have no experience or training in running a City, do not make the best hiring decisions. I, for one, pray that we do not return the a strong mayor system. For once, the City has a long term finance plan, has professional department heads and a direction — in other words, it is being run like a real city. We’ve distanced ourselves from the good-old-boy system of the past.
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