I often hear local citizens express their desire to have our local functionaries put in jail for their actions.
Unless you look closely at the things they are doing you might conclude that they are all illegal. The horrible truth is that the cabal that has seized our local governments is being careful from a legality point of view. They seem to decide what they want to do and then examine the rules and bend them to their favor — just to the point — but not quite — of being illegal. Some of their actions may in fact prove to be illegal, if we can get to the truth.
Getting our local prosecutors to help us is not going to be easy. Note the absence of the district attorney’s office in the well publicized public corruption issues in El Paso. For that matter when has this district attorney prosecuted any public official? The word around town is that he will not do it. The county sheriff could investigate and then press charges, but he is known to be a close friend of our city manager.
There may be other law enforcement agencies that could help but our chances right now are slim. I suspect that those acts that may be judged to be illegal will mostly be violations of Texas laws, not those of the United States. All of that is conjecture until hard facts surface.
When we elect or appoint these people we expect them to do what is right. Unfortunately we have local governing bodies that ignore that and do what their cabal has designed.
It looks like our more likely remedy is at the ballot box. Yes, even those rights have been stolen from us. The various efforts at recall and at initiative have been systematically foiled by one form of parliamentary chicanery or another.
Remember though that a city election is coming in May. We will have an opportunity to elect four council members plus a mayor. Get active.
I believe that one of the mistakes that has caused our current situation is that we changed the City Charter to elect council members for four years instead of two. With four years of office council members evidently feel that the public will not be able to touch them while they do what they want. We have seen efforts at recall squashed through technicalities.
We need to go back to two year terms. Unfortunately that will require a change in the City Charter. Even more unfortunately you and I cannot change the City Charter. Proposals to change it must come from city council — the very rascals that would benefit from leaving the terms at four years. Even members of the United States congress must stand for election every two years. We cannot continue to put our representation on auto-pilot for four years. Look what has happened!
As you decide who to support in the May elections you might want to condition your support on a pledge from the candidate that they will allow the term length issue to be put before the public in a charter election.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Cato
Posted by Cato 
elpasospeak 
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