Citizens - Please Shut Up - Point Missed

A Citizen Response with Comments by Ron West

The following letter was sent to the editor of LNO and is reproduced below in the interest of continuity since the article was published on this site.

May 24, 2005 9.12pm
Reality Check
I found Mr. West's article on his web site (NRHonline), "Citizens-Please Shut Up!" to be an inaccurate representation of the pre-council meeting on May 23 in North Richland Hills. I attended the meeting and did not experience anything like his rendition of reality. I am specifically referring to his account of the discussion that centered around Citizen's Presentations at NRH City Council meetings. West states that the Mayor attempted to implement procedures that would discourage presentations. I interpreted the discussion much differently. Although Mayor Trevino began with an option that procedurally is accurately described by West, it seemed to me that the intent of this initial proposal was to allow city staff the option to give a response to the Citizen's Presentations.  

Once the discussion moved away from this starting point, the Mayor facilitated a sharing of ideas until members of the Council and city staff reached a consensus. I believe it is true that Councilwoman Cox was the first to recommend a change to the initial proposal. (Council woman Cox saved the televising of the citizen comments on a live basis - subject to majority approval next council meeting.  The Mayor didn't want the public to see the presentations until after the council and city staff had prepared professional rebuttals.)

However, in the end it was a group effort and everyone seemed to feel comfortable with the outcome, including Mayor Trevino. West's statement that Councilman Welch was somehow "supporting the suppression of input" is also off the mark. (This whole discussion was to suppress input from citizens by total intimidation from the council and city staff.  There was nothing in the discussion that would in any way encourage citizen input.)  Unlike West's portrayal of the meeting, my assessment is that Mayor Trevino showed true leadership that allowed for both direction and flexibility and that
all members of the Council (that were present) participated in a meaningful discussion. Progress was made. (Progress is defined as making citizens sit through entire council sessions without the possiblity of any input until after all council agenda items are completed - along with facing the total might of the city in rebuttal of anything the council doesn't like.)  Although my understanding of these events is a bit less interesting than Mr. West's, I believe it is more accurate .. and considerably more encouraging. (Fortunately the exchange in question was video taped so if there are doubts about the intent of the council shutting down citizen input, one can view their words!)

Perhaps more important in this response is the lack of any mention of correction of lies by the Mayor, problems with no response on the slush fund and the overall closing of government now that the rubber stamp majority is firmly in power for the next year.  If you had a chance to watch the actual council meeting, perhaps someone should suggest that the charade by the Mayor and Ms. Johnson - pretending that they were not aware of the city development trip that Ms. Bielik was on, was deliberate misdirection by Trevino and Johnson - as usual!

Tim Barth, North Richland Hills