SM City Council’s Revolving Door Of Nonsense

It was a compliment that gave you a sense of accomplishment when your city’s decision makers appreciated your experience, knowledge, and “we can accomplish anything together”  attitude…

By, Melissa Jewett

It’s that time of year again when the City requests its residents to step up to the plate and serve as volunteers and donate their time, knowledge, and experience to serve on the city’s many boards and commissions.

I used to look forward to this time of year, but in what now feels like a past life in a different location, where residents were sought out for these positions due to their wide array of knowledge and experience, that matched their appointed positions.

It was a compliment that gave you a sense of accomplishment when your city’s decision makers appreciated your experience, knowledge, and “we can accomplish anything together”  attitude.

After living here for 10 years, when the City of San Marcos sends out their yearly request for volunteers, I have become very indifferent to the request, but pessimistic about the process.

I have decided that the city’s Sunset Review Committee needs to let the SUN SET on our city council as the decision makers in this volunteer process. I am not one to have a complaint without a solution, but you will have to continue to read to realize that I not only have one solution but two that I believe would work.

Every year we get to see a couple of people who have the experience and knowledge, which should be expected from all of these volunteers, be appointed. The other volunteers that become “appointed” by our council are getting their “appointments” by favoritism or paybacks…This is not an accusation, but a fact. A fact that you know as well if you have ever watched the process from start to finish and then attended some of these board/commission meetings.

You’re probably thinking that my reaction is too harsh or I just don”t like our city council, nothing could be further from the truth. You only need to watch this process with an open mind and you learn it is not only “who you know,” but also it seems that some on our dais only want to put their puppets in these positions.

Here is the definition of “Puppet” from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/puppet?s=t

noun

1. an artificial figure representing a human being or an animal, manipulated by the hand, rods, wires, etc., as on a miniature stage. Compare hand puppet, marionette.

2. a person, group, government, etc., whose actions are prompted and controlled by another or others.

3. a small doll.

4. Machinery, poppet head

Need I say more?

Yes, I have gone to some of these meetings…..I have watched, I have listened, and boy, I have learned.

Several years ago, I attended the “transportation advisory board” (the sun has now set on) and after receiving a presentation, one of the advisory board members asked what a “right-a-way” was and another admitted they did not know as well.

This was not the only scary incident at this specific meeting, but if I continue to explain, the names of some of the innocent will be compromised, and I will not do that.

In another meeting I attended, a board member was trying to pass himself off as someone who had a position of power at Texas State and another organization in San Marcos, and no one on the advisory committee questioned it, but a couple of us in attendance knew the truth and we were stunned.

My first suggestion to this politically motivated inexperienced volunteer problem; why not let the city staff choose? This would (we can hope) remove all political motivations, the city staff is required to work with these groups and it would give them advisory volunteers that have the knowledge and experience to help them do their jobs better and make life a little easier on our hard working city staff.

If you look at the current list here, you will see that two of the boards are now being chosen by staff and not the council, why not all of them?

My second suggestion would be to give council typed written applications with no names. You would have to do silly things like require white paper, black ink, maybe have someone assign numbers instead of names. Yes, said in sarcasm.

But really? Why do we need to go to this length to get ethical and fair decisions from our city council just to get experienced, advisory role boards and commission volunteers?

The crazy thing is, we have no control over who makes these appointments. Our city council is not going to read this and say, “Hey, she’s right” and change the appointment process. Trust me; the council is never happy with Corridor News.

Our power is in the election process

People say our power lies in our election process and getting out the vote and we need to weigh out all the little details that our elected officials have complete control over.

In this country, politics start at the local level; very important decisions on rules, laws, ordinances, codes, and a large portion of our taxes are decided on at the local level.

In our opinion, the residents and citizens who have the experience and knowledge to sit on these boards/commissions, that could help the city staff and our council, on important issues, issues that affect our entire city and county, need to help the rest of us stop this revolving door of political partisanship, paybacks, and complete nonsense.