End of Term Limits?

We do have a mess in this city. It is most definitely the fault of the City Manager, but not just Ted Benavides. We have had bad management at City Hall going back at least to Chuck Anderson -- then Jan Hart (now Hart Black) -- then John Ware -- now Ted Benavides. Chuck Anderson balanced the budget with smoke and mirrors under Mayor Annette Strauss. She and her council knew what the CM was doing. They knew we were neglecting infrastructure for flash (Meyerson). It was the Strauss/Anderson regime who took street repair out of the general budget and made it a bond item.

	Jan Hart Black (Chuck Anderson's number 1 Asst. City Manager) followed in his smoke and mirrors footsteps. She actually showed some gumption as City Manager until Mayor Steve Bartlett and woman hater, former councilman Don Hicks forced her to resign.
Bartlett wanted a Strong Mayor form of government without a Charter Amendment, Jan Hart wanted to protect the power of the City Manager, Don Hicks wanted an opportunity to push forward African-American John Ware. Being a good little ODB, Hart Black resigned and took a cushy job with the big boys. Now, she's a solid ODB team player and frequent spokeswoman.

Having more power after disposing of Jan Hart did not make things work better for Steve Bartlett, so Ray Hunt and other ODB's (Our Downtown Betters) told Bartlett he did not want to run for a second term and that they had decided Ron Kirk would be the next mayor. Without Hunt's patronage Bartlett would have had big problems.

We barely survived 6 years of tyranny under that Former Mayor, who succeeded where Bartlett failed to thwart the City Charter and operate City Hall under a strong mayor system. That's why we had a $85 Million shortfall in this Budget process.

Because that Former Mayor liked our crooked City MisManager and approved of Ware's shady doings, there were no checks or balances. Just like Bartlett, Kirk could have got rid of Ware or Benavides because he held hammers over enough council members to get his way. Bartlett had the likes of Donna Halstead and Max Wells to do his bidding. Kirk had Don Hicks, then Don Hill to bully all the African-Americans into following his will (except for Charlotte Mayes), so he only had to lean on 1 or 2 others to do his dirty deeds.

Therefore, "City Manager" can be the same form of government as "Strong Manager", depending on whether the Mayor is mean enough and controls enough council crooks to do the Mayor's bidding. Changing to Strong Mayor is not what has me in a stew.

	I am much more concerned about the potential the Commission will recommend changing council member terms from 2 years to 4 years. Worse, they might recommend the council have limits of three terms. 3 x 4 = 12 years.	James Northrup: What's going on here is vote swapping - that the mayor will get more power if the 'fiefdoms' can exploit longer.
That's four more years of one council member controlling a district than we have now. Anyone who follows City Hall doings knows council members go dead brain after three terms. No one is as good in their 4th term as they were in their 1st or 2nd terms. Those like Shakedown Leo Chaney might actually get even more aggressive in their exploitation.

Here are some comments to explain whey I'm so nervous about the Charter Review Commission's recommendations:

I do think the Mayor should hire and fire the Fire Chief and Police Chief, but her decision should have to be affirmed by the council. If the council wants to keep someone the Mayor wants gone, they vote contrary to that decision. If the council opposes a candidate the Mayor recommends, they vote contrary to that nominee. There is no reason for the City Manager to control either Department. They are different from other city services. Police and Firefighters are Public Safety Officers. Our current City MisManager has frequently expressed his bias against public safety officers and has tried to stir the rest of City Hall personnel up against them.

Back to changing terms of service. Three 4-year terms for council members would actually make the Mayor weaker than any council member. A council member could be in office for 12 years, but the Mayor would be limited to 8 years. That's nuts. The one person that everyone gets to vote for would have less time in office than someone who may have only got a couple of hundred votes like John Loza. Every council member has a vote on issues that impact your district, and you can't do a thing about it.

I don't believe this is about extending the terms of council members so they don't have to run every 2 years. This is the beginning of the end of term limits. That's what the ODB really want. They want to find their new Old Al Lipscomb's and get him (or her) in office and not have to worry with upstarts who might actually vote based on integrity or merit.

One ODB flunky is pushing for 4 year terms because he says it is too hard and expensive to run every two years. For Heaven's sake -- the U.S. Congress is up every 2 years.

We must have 2 year accountability. It's practically impossible to unseat an incumbent as it is. If the council is elected to 4-year terms, there is no accountability at all. Horrible!!

Changing the salaries of the Mayor and Council and prohibiting outside income is another dangerous idea. As a council member, Mayor Miller successfully pushed for council salaries to get more "professional" people on the council. The salary was to "compensate" a council member for time away from their business or jobs -- not to replace their jobs.

To get experienced business people to run for office, you cannot tell them they must live on $75,000 annually and give up a business they have struggled to establish. That would eliminate anyone who runs their own business, investors, realtors, developers, lawyers, doctors or CPA's. The very type of people we need to look out for us at City Hall would have to pass. Dr. Garcia has not given up her dental practice. The lawyers on the council have not given up their practice. Shakedown Leo Chaney did take a sabbatical from his DISD job because he had a serious CONFLICT OF INTEREST in working for the DISD and serving on the council.

Mary Lou Montes Zijderveld:
   It did not surprise me to see that all the good people who voted for the mayor and city council to receive pay were deceived about the real reason why we should pay them. The true intention was to get paid to run their little kingdoms at the expense of the citizens.
   It is sad to see the consequences of having ambitious political tyrants who take advantage of the fact that most citizens are not informed as to how this city is run.
   This is the beginning of what is to come because we can expect to see more ways they expect to be supported -- all at the expense of taxpayers who have to give up their homes in Dallas and move to the suburbs because they cannot pay our high property taxes.
    We should not allow this to happen because we will continue to see our money is mismanaged. We must get more people to attend budget and bond townhall meetings.

We would be right back to only the wealthy or retired or housewives or under-employed never-do-wells like Old Al serving on the council and making decisions regarding your life, your taxes and a billion-dollar budget. That's how we got in this mess.

Instead of the Charter Review Commission, the Mayor needs to help elect enough people who she can count on for 8 votes.