NRH 2005 City Council Issues Raised by Challengers & Ignored by Incumbents who were re-elected. - Updated 9/27/05

Incumbents:  John Lewis, Suzy Compton, David Whitson & Tim Welch

Issue #1:  Runaway Spending & Taxes - 3/28/05

Incumbents Record:  For ever higher taxes on everyone – as stated in goals 2010 and other city publications.  – Their plans anticipate your property taxes going up every year by holding the rate with increasing valuations.  Plans call for corresponding increases in spending without consideration of tax relief for citizens.  All of the above incumbents voted for increased taxes by holding the rate for the 13th year.  No spending cuts were discussed or considered in the over $80 Million budget for 2005/06

Challengers Position:  Challengers were for lower taxes for all by controlling runaway spending!  Challengers plan to be involved in the budget process and seek citizen input on new spending requirements.  The two newest members of the council voted for the 2005/06 budget without suggesting any cuts.

Issue #2:  Threats of Reduced Service Levels

Incumbents Record:  Incumbents talk about cutting fire, police and utility services whenever faced with discussions about lowering taxes in order to continue to increase revenues.  They say that massive new revenue is required for growth.  All talk about cuts is coming from the incumbents.  No cuts were made, employees got a 4% raise and we bought new police cars even with dozens parked out of use daily at city hall.

Challengers Position:  Challengers supported responsible city growth with out ANY cuts in services, city employee compensation or numbers.  Growth can be encouraged by making the city more business and citizen friendly.  NO cuts in staffing, pay or benefits to city employees are supported by the challengers nor do they support any reduction in city services to residents.

Issue #3:  Issuing Debt Without Voter Approval

This deals with Certificates of Obligation (bonds) which require that property taxes for debt service be raised to meet principal and interest payments.

Incumbents Record:  Incumbents appear to be committed to new issues of debt to implement the current Highway 820 Study and the South Grapevine Highway study even before the studies are complete.  In the recent Goals 2010 meeting, JoAnn Johnson was particularly vocal about their intent to continue to issue Certificates of Obligation as they thought it necessary.  At the current time the city owes over $21 Million from this type of debt issuance without any voter input or approval.  Watch for more of this type of debt issue in 2006.

Challengers Position:  Certificates of Obligation were intended to be an "emergency only" type of relief valve for cities.  Challengers did not support the issuance of new debt without first submitting such debt for approval to the voters - unless a "real" emergency occurred.  Regular maintenance and painting of a water tank as an example would not be an emergency. 

Issue #4:  Senior/ Disabled Tax Freeze

This deals with the issue and the attitude towards ever increasing taxes.

Incumbents Record:  Incumbents fought vigorously to defeat the tax freeze.  They supported the publication of misinformation in the City Newsletter.  They called supporters "political terrorists" and stated that "citizens didn't understand what they were voting for".   They considered removing the current senior exemption in council discussions and documents.

Issue #5:  Real Public Hearings

State law requires public hearings on a number of items. 
Hearings can be used to gauge the wishes of the citizens.

Incumbents Record:   The current majority on the council has changed the hearing on the budget to one council session prior to budget approval.  Prior to this change, the hearing and final approval occurred on the same date.  This was a window dressing only type change.  Speakers are limited to 3 minutes and virtually all information relating to the various hearings is obscured or totally unavailable to the public.  Agenda items announcing hearings are cryptic and seldom contain enough information to truly let citizens know what the hearing is being held for.  The majority of the incumbents totally ignore any input from citizens.  It is exceedingly rare for citizen input to influence even one word in an ordinance or one line in the budget.  A classic example was the recent setting of the front 9 1/2 feet of your property as a "safety zone" for RV's only.  This was in spite of multiple requests to set the "zone" at 4 1/2 feet as a compromise.  Citizens are occasionally ridiculed for speaking before the council in hearings.  The record and the words of the incumbents indicate that they do not respect nor wish to hear from citizens.  Recent discussions about gagging citizen input before the council is an example of their regard for voters input.

Challengers Position:  The slate of challengers supported real hearings with information on hearing subject matter made available to citizens in advance of hearings.  The challengers were running to be public servants rather than public masters.   Challengers have stated support for hearings in advance of final decisions being in place.

Issue #6:  Open Government 

The citizen is the ultimate control for runaway government. 

Such control cannot be exercised when information is withheld or destroyed. 

Incumbents Record:   The current majority on the council has continually endorsed closed government and cryptic communications with the citizens.  Agenda's are non-descriptive and often misleading.  Agendas are not necessarily followed depending on location of the meeting.  New laws are enacted without prior disclosure.  Information is often destroyed.  The ordinances of the city are not on the city's website and are not filed in a manner that would allow either review or understanding by the citizens of the city.  Closed boards control significant tax dollars without public oversight.  Incumbents have stated that we are not smart enough to understand their "accounting".  This is the group that has endorsed the destruction of city records during lawsuits.  This destruction of records was a primary factor in the $1.5 settlement cost to the city in the recent Hughes Age Discrimination lawsuit.  New actions by the re-elected incumbents simply certify their intent to keep the local government closed to the citizens.

Challengers Position:  The slate of challengers has stated support for fully open government.  They want real agendas that tell you what the meetings are about.  They have stated support for publication of ordinances in advance of enactment and for publication of existing ordinances on the city web site.  They are for public oversight of all city actions and want to have real exchanges with the citizens of the city.  One challenger has stated support for changing the way council meetings are held - if possible to allow citizen comments on budget items.  The incumbents are citizens like you and I.

Issue #7  Fiscal Responsibility

    Incumbents Record:  Over the past 12 years city total revenue has increased approximately 186%.  During this entire period, the incumbents have bragged about "holding the rate" while at the same time projecting the increased revenues from ever increasing valuations.  At no point during this period was the possibility of tax relief for the citizens publicly discussed.  Over the past 3 years, these same incumbents have rubber stamped a budget that they are largely excluded from which contained over $15 Million for two "non-departments".  This staggering number represents over 20% to the total property tax revenue collected each year during this period.  Until recently, there were no questions even asked about this huge "slush fund".  The response from the city manager indicated that significant violations or deviations from the approved budget were made under his direction for these funds but again, our sitting council asked no questions.  The budget is not available to the public prior to the required budget hearings.  Recent pronouncements by a spokesman for the incumbents indicates that they do not believe that any citizen is intelligent enough to understand their accounting practices.

    Challengers Position:  The challengers have stated an intent to open the budget process to public view and scrutiny.  Rather than being excluded from early budget development as has been the practice in the past, these new faces would become involved in the review process well in advance of the final approval.  They have also pledged to make the preliminary budget available to the public well in advance of final approval.  They will not be afraid to ask questions as has been evidenced by Councilwoman Nancy Bielik's actions since her election.  The challengers believe that the citizens are intelligent enough to not only understand the actions of the city but to also oversee them.

Issue #8  Honesty

    Incumbents Record:  The incumbents are supposed to oversee the operations of the city.  With their zeal for ever higher taxes, they endorsed false and misleading information in the city newsletter by attributing the current over 65 homestead exemption as a "cost" of the tax freeze vote.  They also utilized the city newsletter to publish that taxes from TIF#2 were 10 times greater than reality.  Mr. Trevino recently sent a letter to the Star Telegram designed to make people think that the Loop 820 expansion would mandate the closing of the library which is totally false.  Mr. Cunningham wrote a letter into the city council record claiming that the state law governing TIF's did not demand that they be no more than 10% residential citing some high paid lawyers opinions rather than the law.  The council has approved a contract with the city attorney, that while legal, encourages the attorney to encourage litigation against the city for his own personal benefit.  The city is knowingly enforcing an illegal sign ordinance against our small business owners.   The council and city management has decided to operate behind closed doors and all changes to ordinances and all new ordinances are kept secret until ready for a council vote - at which time no discussion is permitted.  Recent reply's by the city manager relating to slush funds have contained gross deviations from the budget but no questions are asked by the council.  The local government is closed to the public for unknown reasons.  Hiding information, presenting false information and poor supervision all indicate a basic lack of honesty with the citizens.  The PAC website sponsored by and supporting the incumbents is filled with deliberate lies and vitriolic misinformation bordering on outright slander.  The incumbents have endorsed this type of attack of the voters who oppose them.   Honesty is not mentioned in their "values for NRH".

    Challengers Position:  The challengers have stated an intent to support for fully open government for full public scrutiny.  They are pledged to work for truth from all city responses and in all city publications.   They have pledged to submit law changes to the public for comment before enactment.  They are opposed to the contract with the city attorney due to its blatant conflict of interest.  The challengers are honest folks who will bring badly needed sunlight on the operations of this city.

Issue #9  Contract With City Attorney - Posted 4/29/05

The Issue:  Potential conflict of interest.  - The current contract with the City Attorney is up for review and renewal in June 2005.  The current contract allows the City Attorney to make money on every lawsuit initiated against NRH.  Do you support renewal as is or would you support a change in the contract that would preclude the City Attorney and his staff from direct personal benefit from lawsuits filed against the city?

    Incumbents Response:  Only exact responses without comment will appear here. 

    This response published on incumbents PAC Site 4/29/05: 

    Challengers Response:  Only exact responses without comment will appear here. 

        From Kerry West - 4/28/05 -

I have not yet had the opportunity to review the city attorney’s contract with the city.  However, it does appear some changes may be in order.  To the degree that the contract provides any incentive to the city attorney to engage in unnecessary litigation, it needs to be changed.  I am opposed to conflicts of interest within the city leadership, regardless of where they occur.  No city leader or employee should be placed in a situation where they must choose between their own interests and those of the citizens they are supposed to serve.  I believe this view is consistent with the city’s Charter.