Lubbock Left

Made it through 209 names so far in the data entry portion of my little project. Hopefully tomorrow I will have the rest finished so that I can start my analysis for real.

For disclosure’s sake, I’m not in favor of the recall election. I am in favor of the people’s right to circulate a recall petition and to have it counted fairly as many times as they care to try. I really believe that Linda’s constituents value her 20+ years in public service in spite of the latest hiccups which have more to do with public relations than with policy.

And yes, I also wish that City Secretary Becky Garza had allowed watchers from each side of the issue to be present for the validation process. (I have worked with Becky Garza in the past and have been impressed with her professionalism, but I believe that prohibiting watchers was not the right decision.) At least the petition itself is available to the public, along with the reasons for each rejection, when the final count is released next week.

Onward.

Today is the day that the public (and the City Council) get to see the staff’s proposed budget for 07-08.

The A-J has posted a copy of the budget broken into different sections as part of their coverage.

In case the above link goes away or they decide to remove the documents, I have re-hosted the pdfs here:

• Administrative Services
• Community Service
• Cultural and Recreation Services
• Debt Service Fund
• General Fund
• Public Safety and Health Services
• Public Works
• Revenue Analysis

As many of us on the Left are fond of saying, “Budgets are moral documents.” I wonder what priorities these documents will show…

I consider myself to be an outside observer of the whole Dixon Platt implosion, but certain aspects of the case jump out at me. The A-J reports that Platt dropped out of the grievance hearing process because he felt that the mediator had a bias toward the City.

I wonder why he uses the potential bias of the arbitrating attorney now, after two days of testimony, to cancel the public hearing process. Why not point out the possible bias at the beginning of the process, thus saving two days of testimony (and taxpayer dollars too)?

My hunch is that the hearings weren’t going well for Platt, and he needed a dignified “out” to re-group and begin a fresh legal assault.

Thoughts?

I attended the District 3 Town Hall meeting, and it was a good experience because I got to see people actually getting involved with their elected leaders face-to-face. The meeting covered lots of ground, from soccer to streets to MHMR, in addition to the expected big topics of the bond proposal, red light cameras, crime, and taxes.

District 3 Councilman Todd Klein was joined by District 2 Councilman Floyd Price — whose district begins across the street from Oakwood Baptist, the meeting location — and a good cross-section of city staff. Councilman Klein really impressed me with this Town Hall debut. He listened well and promised individual meetings with citizens who had concerns beyond the scope of a single public meeting. Overall, I think the whole panel did a good job of responding to citizen questions and complaints.

I took some video of the event, and I’ll try to put some clips online over the next few days. It was my first time videotaping such an event, so I’ll probably have to hunt around for usable clips. Bear with me; I think some important things were said.

Occasionally we Lubbockites get some good letters to the editor in our daily paper, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. (Most days, it’s just cranky people complaining about traffic.) From a good LTE about how Bush ignores the will of the American People by a Mr. Bruce Satterfield:

Why won’t Mayor Miller listen to the people and get rid of the red-light cameras? That is a very good question. Funny how you can accept it when a politician not listening to their constituency results in the death of Americans, but you draw the line when it means you might have to pay $75.

Right on, Mr. Satterfield. Right on.