Vicious Attacks and Name Calling

    The following are columns that were submitted by Ken Sapp of North Richland Hills to Local News Only for publication.  It is on this website so that readers have easy access to his most current "positions".  My responses which were also published on Local News Only, are inserted in date sequence.  Out thanks to Local News Only for providing an open - unedited - forum for public views and opinions.  I encourage all readers to form their own opinions and do their own research as to actual facts.

To understand what I saw tonight, one must first understand what an Ordinance truly is. The following definition was found on the internet: 
Definition: ordinance noun a law or rule made by a government authority (from Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary – online)

To paraphrase, an ordinance is the taking of a privilege, right, duty, responsibility or action of private citizens and transferring such privilege, right, duty, responsibility or action to a governmental body. 
 

Every time a new “ordinance” (law) is passed by any governmental body, we as citizens, are voluntarily giving up the same privileges, rights, duties, responsibilities or actions and allowing the government to assume previous capabilities. 

With this in mind, during the Council meeting the “temperature of the water went up a couple of degrees, but the frogs remained comfortable”. (This alludes to the old story that you can boil frogs to death if you place them in cold water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling.) The council voted 7 – 0 to add further restrictions and restraints – under the cover of phony safety issues – to the existing sign ordinance. This is the same sign ordinance that is being used to blackmail businesses into cutting down pole signs and dictating that only tombstone (monument) signs are allowed in most of our city. 

Bo Bass, Assistant City Manager, cited a safety issue of a large sign put up by the Republican Party headquarters on Davis Blvd., which triggered a complaint from a motorist. City staff investigated, contacted the Republican Party and they immediately moved the sign back to make sure it was safe. This “incident” called for “further regulation” by the city because – in the future, there might be a time when the owner of the sign could not be found in a timely manner.

When all the dust settled, the council passed a new law that none of them had read the final wording on. That will be left up to city staff to develop under the control our City Manager Cunningham and City Attorney George Staples. This is standard operating procedure for NRH. New ordinances do not require public hearings nor do they require pre-publication for public review prior to them becoming law. Apparently, the city staff can write new ordinances, post them to the council on Thursday, preceding the Council Meetings on Monday and then, the Council – with virtually no public discussion – can make them the law that the rest of us have to live by. If this is to continue – then the choice of our Council representatives becomes ever more important.

After the sign passage, the Council – by a motion from JoAnn Johnson, retained closed control of both of the TIF boards by nominating Susie Compton to one board and Tim Welch to the other. These boards and their actions remain closed to outsiders. TIF#2 is the legal body in control of all the new tax property tax revenues from Hometown NRH. This is projected to be $85 Million or more over the life of the TIF. The vote to approve the nominations was 7 – 0.

The council did set up some interesting “reading of letters” for the next council meeting. Ms. Patricia Christopher made her second appearance before the Council requesting consideration for Mrs. Lucille Stevens use of her property. At one point Mrs. Christopher was in tears (our Mayor chuckled at that) before she was cut off by time and the Mayor. After her presentation, the Mayor launched an indirect attack on Mrs. Christopher by directing the City Manager to read a letter at the beginning of the next council meeting fully justifying the city’s actions. 

Following Mrs. Christopher’s presentation, Mr. Ken Sapp made a presentation lauding the “virtues” represented by the young folks that led the pledge and invocation. He then launched into an attack on the NRHOnline website without calling it by name, saying it was filled with “misinformation”. (After the pre-council meeting, Mr. Sapp interrupted a conversation I was having with Bo Bass and handed me a note. He verbally said “that makes you a liar but your website is just lies anyway” and walked off.) As a result of his presentation, the Mayor directed the City Manager to read another letter at the beginning of the next council meeting to explain the restrictions on Council Members talking to city staff.

Both letters should be interesting reading and listening.

If fairness to readers, I must admit that after the TIF appointments, I had heard all I could stand and left the meeting. If there was important business in the remaining items on the agenda, I missed them.

January 25, 2005
West BLOG Continues

a column by Ken Sapp

he New Year has not dimmed Ron West's capacity for Bumbling Outrageous Obnoxious Gobbledygook. His most recent LNO article about attempts to silence the opposition with an amended political sign ordinance were, as usual, filled with inaccurate statements or outright prevarications. 
West, armed with a video camera, taped the January 24 Pre Council discussion of this matter and hopefully he will make this tape available to the public. His accusation of silencing the opposition and allegations of making my "illegal"Tax Freeze campaign signs legal were, as usual groundless and a figment of his imagination. 

I encourage all residents to watch the Council debate on this topic on Citycable and explain why, if his accusations are true, why Nancy Bielik would vote for such an amendment. 

I am not asking Ron to stop writing this BLOG because it only serves to further enlighten the reading public of his wrong headed view of our city. I encourage all to read his twisted ranting and make their own judgments as to whether they would want to live in a city governed by his view of for the future.

Is Correction Required? a column by Ron West

As I have previously reported, Mr. Ken Sapp handed me a note immediately after the pre-council meeting in NRH this past Monday night, January 24th, 2005. The note was written on the blank top half of the first page and said “Ron – once again you were wrong! I assume you will correct your allegation”. He delivered it with a verbal statement calling me a liar and stating that everything on the NRHOnline.com website was lies.

The rest of the “note” was a reproduction of the article “NRH Moves to Silence Opposition”. The apparent information that he was calling lies was underlined as follows:

“In a bold attempt to squash political opposition” the majority on the City Council is moving to make it legal for city employees to remove political signs they don’t like.

The second “lie” was about: This group of changes makes the large illegal signs used by Ken Sapp - while fighting for higher taxes on the Seniors – legal and not political signs.

If I understand his note correctly, Mr. Sapp is calling both of the underlined portions of the above “wrong” and lies.

I would like for everyone to remember early 2003 when for almost the first time, runaway spending in NRH was challenged by a small group of signs scattered around the city opposing the pork barrel bond election on February 1, 2003. About 3 days before the election, city employees, under the direction of city management, went all over the city picking up the signs opposing the bonds. It is our belief that the orders for this action came either directly or indirectly from our current Mayor and City Manager.

This latest “ordinance change” is in our opinion, a license for the city employees who support incumbents to move about the city again removing signs of the opposition under the now legal guise of safety hazards. We as citizens – even if we catch them in the act – have virtually no recourse because of this new ordinance. As so aptly demonstrated by our current city administration, wrongful acts of city employees are vigorously defended by our City Attorney.

Citizens should also note that only one incident that was quickly resolved during the Presidential Election created the “necessity” of this new ordinance change!

In other parts of the new changes are additional restrictions on where signs may be placed that may favor incumbents and their real estate and developer friends. An example of this is the permission from Mark Woods for incumbents to place political signs around the city on virtually all of the property he has listed for sale. 

Since the language of the new ordinance is still being drafted, I suppose we will have to wait for just how “obfuscated” it turns out to be to see the long term effect. Since this is the second or third time the Mayor has attempted to “change” the political sign ordinance, I stand behind my statement that this is a “bold attempt to squash political opposition”! Only time and actual performance by city employees will tell if I am right or wrong.

A correction to the article is required in that I “assumed” wrongly that the vote to approve this measure would be 5 to 2. The actual vote was 7 to 0.

As to Mr. Sapp’s second “issue”: “makes the large illegal signs used by Ken Sapp” while fighting for higher taxes on the Seniors – legal and not political signs.

If the supporters of the Tax Freeze had attempted to use political signs larger than 36 square feet to support the freeze, I firmly believe that our City Attorney would have quickly ruled them illegal by city ordinance and had them removed. When such signs seeking ever higher taxes on Seniors was involved, the opposite was true and our City Attorney apparently ruled them not to be political signs and allowed permitting for them.

Were they actually illegal? Obviously under the current city administration they were either legal or the law was bent to make them legal. Either way – in the next election the larger political signs will be legal and have pre-defined requirements. If you are in power and you need the law changed to benefit your next election, you just change the law.

There is truly an unfortunate note about this exchange for a couple of important reasons:

1) Mr. Ken Sapp is an intelligent active citizen in our city. I know that he is a capable fighter for the causes he believes in. I hope at some point he realizes that the venomous personal attacks against those who oppose the current majority on the council are not helping either his causes or the city.

2) Perhaps most important is that the fight over the sign ordinance changes – while important – is but one small step in for ever more over reaching local government. It is another example of new laws (ordinances) being jammed down our respective throats without any regard for citizen input or notification.

The decision process of what the real story is in our city, who is working for citizens and who is for ever more spending, for more taxes, for more laws, for open or closed government and who is trying to speak the truth will be decided by the voters and citizens of our city in May. I have every confidence that our citizens can decide the truth in issues and that they have the intelligence to both contribute to and decide the future direction of our city.

January 26, 2005
BLOG and More BLOG from West 
a column by Ken Sapp

West indicates in his most recent LNO current article that he left the January 24 City Council meeting disgusted and may have missed some business transactions. West frequently misinterprets what occurs at Council meetings even when he is present. His unique manner of seeing or hearing something through his negative filtering devices is a constant source of amazement to many. 
I was personally amused when West criticized the two council members he supported for voting in favor of the revised political sign ordinance. Perhaps West believes that only his view can be correct and that evil lurks in every action taken by our city officials, no matter who they are.

Some believe that it is helpful at times to take a contrarian or "devils advocate" position on city actions and I am among them. The question could be raised, however, if constant criticism serves a civic purpose or if it can reach a point of being obstructive and counter productive. I believe readers should develop their own conclusions and I encourage their evaluation. 

I also believe that West also has a divergent view of the Mayor's handling of Ms Christopher. I would first like to state that I believe Ms. Christopher is genuine in her concern for Ms. Stevens. She is a very nice lady and her passion for a perceived injustice is commendable. It is important to note that Ms. Christopher, by her personal admission, has no first hand knowledge of relevant historical facts nor does she have personal awareness of Ms. Stevens financial circumstances. 

West also alleges that the Mayor's made fun of Ms. Christopher. He should know that a giggle can sometimes be evidence of making fun of someone. It should also be noted that psychologists indicate is common for a person to giggle when embarrassed or when surprised or bewildered by a persons actions. Unless West is clairvoyant or a behavioral scientist, perhaps he should refrain from such a critical judgment. 

With regard to his concern for Ms. Stevens, he should consider that when no one lived adjacent to the Steven's property, perhaps the city looked the other way. While I have no knowledge that this is the case, it is possible. If so, West's position holds that no good deed should go unpunished. He, no doubt would have been more satisfied if the unauthorized use of the Steven's property had been curtailed at the outset and the Stevens family would have been deprived of the income they earned during the period of unauthorized use. 

Furthermore, does West know who sold the property to the developer that in turn built the residences objecting to unauthorized recreational vehicle storage? Does he also believe that as a strong advocate of property rights, that these new residents have no rights? Is it his suggestion that code enforcement overlook homeowner complaints and continue to allow illegal activity? His response to these questions should be interesting and I look forward to them.

Constructive criticism is helpful when delivered from an objective position. On the other hand, an arrogant attitude, self proclaimed intellectual superiority and finding fault with everything, serves little positive purpose. 

That is just my opinion, 

I wonder if Mr. Sapp has actually looked at what I am fighting for?

I consider fighting for the Senior Tax Freeze positive while Mr. Sapp was fighting for continually increasing taxes on the seniors and disabled.

I consider fighting for open responsive government positive while I must assume that Mr. Sapp favors our current form of closed government.

I consider fighting to make sure our local ordinances are legal and compliant with state law positive. I don’t know where Mr. Sapp stands on this issue.

I consider fighting to keep our elected officials from issuing debt without voter approval positive.


I consider fighting to make NRH a city that is attracting business rather than running it off positive.

I consider controlling run away spending positive but Mr. Sapp defended the budget so I assume he thinks control of runaway spending is negative.

I fight for property owner rights and resent the taking of control of private property by our local council wrong. Is this positive or negative to Mr. Sapp?

I fight for legal actions by our elected officials. I resent the obvious bending of the intent of the law to create TIF’s which divert taxes to special pet projects of our elected officials. 

I fight to inform citizens in our city as to the other side of issues. My small voice is tiny compared to the work of the only local newspaper that is always for bigger government and more taxes.

I fight for fair treatment of our citizens like Mrs. Lucille Stevens. Why should the city so rigorously enforce the code against Mrs. Stevens when they bent the code for the Mayor to have his concrete plant on public land over many citizen objections? I think fighting for fair treatment for our citizens is positive. 

Consider the Mayor’s response to the citizen presentation by Mrs. Christopher Monday night as transcribed from the video recording:

“Mr. Cunningham, I would like something at the announcement section of the next meeting and for the letter to be read publicly so that Mrs. Christopher’s accusations are brought to light and what the city did rather than allowing her to come up and accuse this city and staff of doing something illegal, immoral or wrong. I think we need to address it in an announcement.”

Is the Mayor’s behavior positive? Are his comments positive? Have we delegated the right to free speech before the council to the Mayor? Does he have the right to talk about “allowing” such comments? Many of the details of the city’s actions are posted on NRHOnline under the “Heavy Hand of NRH Government”.

It is obvious that Mr. Sapp and I disagree on many points. The one thing I would like for him to count on, however, is that I plan to continue to fight as vigorously as possible to try to return NRH to a city that is good to live and do business in. In a way, Mr. Sapp’s opinion – right or wrong – is good, because it allows the citizens of NRH to look at the current actions of the council and make their own decisions as to what is positive and what is negative.
 

January 27, 2005
Fighting For or Just Fighting? 
a column by Ken Sapp

I first would like to apologize to the readers of LNO for the public verbal fist fight between Ron West and myself. They deserve to see more fitting commentary on the noble pages of this media. I would prefer not to offer continued rebuttal of his comments but West insists on presenting his version of the facts which quite frequently are only half truths or no truth at all. He will probably respond to this by saying that I am calling him a liar and I say if the shoe fit, wear it.

Last year in public forums I appealed for civil discourses in NRH politics but West offers no tolerance for such activity. He accuses city officials of lying, theft, discrimination and other forms of dishonesty. He has frequently misstated my position on the Senior Tax Freeze and continues to do so. He has accused me of ethical breaches and violations of the city sign ordinances even when he knows that these charges have been repeatedly proven to have no substance or gravity. 

Just a brief comment on the Senior Tax Freeze. West knows my position was to adopt increased tax exemptions for seniors and disabled individuals versus a freeze. This would have resulted in immediate tax reduction and fair treatment for all current and future senior or disabled persons. His pernicious statement of the untruths and playing on the emotions of senior citizens helped contribute to a permanent injustice for all NRH citizens. Does this sound like I was or currently am in favor of increased taxes for seniors or anyone for that matter? 

West would like to think that he is the "Joan of Arc" NRH citizens. I suppose that if this were true, he would be a sitting city councilman and not a defeated candidate from the last election. As I have repeatedly stated, our council is not infallible and have at times made decisions I disagree with. Although West has accused me of being the mouthpiece and apologist for the majority of our council and city officials, they would candidly verify that this is not the case. My method of working for change is more diplomatic than his use of persistent public criticism, degradation or attempted embarrassment of employees and elected officials.

West would like for the public to believe that his ideals will lead a RETURN of a better city to live and do business in. I am confused by his use of return. If we retroactively applied his vision, we would be a city of cow paths, hitching posts, a one room school, a volunteer fire department and a part time constable. It is difficult understand that if our city leadership has done so much wrong, why are we now the third largest city in Tarrant County and a place each year that many new residents choose to call home.

He further believes that NRH is hostile to business and that they are fleeing to adjacent cities. Yes NRH has lost some business to Hurst but not for the reasons he cites. Satellite locations around a major mall draw more traffic and potential revenue. With business it is location, location, location. Yet when our city endeavors to create a more attractive business zone he criticizes the efforts. I believe he will be proven wrong in great measure in the very near future. 

West often states that citizen need to get involved and remember his statements when they vote in the May election. He may be surprised that I also strongly hope they recall his ranting and I will do all I can to help them remember. I am confident that West's constant repetition of falsehoods, misstatements or slander will only serve to further discredit his message (whatever it is). I seriously doubt the majority of our citizens will agree that West's vision for our fine city is the same as theirs

Well, that is just my Opinion.