League City has an Oligarchy? No mandate for council-manager?

Jake Lass & Former Mayor Tim Paullisen, some responses to your comments (since I've been locked out of Facebook)

Jake Lass,

You should look up a few words before using them.  Specifically, oligarchy, lies, and defamation.  You see, Mr. Lass, calling something a lie puts the burden on you to prove it's a lie.  Please refute ANY claims I've made with facts if you're going to call them lies.  In fact, I'm curious as to which statements I've made you feel are lies.  Since the bulk of what I've written are comments about the nature of our city government, opinions about it's effectiveness, and references to back up such positions, what would make that a "lie".  You could say it's a slanted representation of the position, if you had examples.  You could argue with an alternative opinion.  But what is a "lie"?  Please provide examples and proof that anything claims I've made (which are VERY few) are lies.

Now, let's talk about an oligarchy.  We can all vote.  If only a few have chosen to participate, that does not make our city government an oligarchy.  In fact, if anything points to an oligarchy, it's the fact that y'all are pushing forward a candidate that has a park in town with his family name on it.  Or that the green team keeps trotting out retread losers like Pat Hallisey. 

Now let's talk about your claim that the city staff is hellbent on spending money regardless of the wisdom behind that spending.  A couple points that make this statement absolutely ludicrous:

1. The bulk of expenses coming up now are the result of previous councils' decisions.
2. The new projects being proposed all seem to me to have quite a bit of wisdom being considered as part of the decision.  Example - the downtown revitalization effort, which had numerous examples cited showing the value of the investment in returns to the city.  Now, you could research and provide examples where such plans have failed (please do so) but to blanket claim they are spending money carelessly and senselessly is garbage.  The other expenses I've seen the council undertake (sometimes under advisement of the city staff, sometimes on their own initiative) have been things such as roads and water projects.  Y'all like to complain about the state of infrastructure in this city, then you complain about the spending.  You can't have improvements without paying for them.  It's that simple.  And the fact is, all of these are projects that will help the city continue to attract people to it, both residents (increasing property values, which will increase money in your pocket should you sell your house, and increase city revenues to ensure balanced budgets in the future) as well as outsiders, who will spend money here (again, increasing revenue to shift the burden of funding the city from the homeowners to the outsiders).  Furthermore, these projects will all serve to bring in more commerce and industry - again, effective investments to shift the tax burden off of the homeowners.  Please specifically identify how these projects like concern about the wisdom behind them.  Bear in mind, there is a substantial difference between simply spending money and investing money.

Now, your comments about "is this someone we should be listening to" are in general offensive, but to be expected, since they were posted on the League City Politics is a Ful Contact Sport page.  Should we say the same about some of your regulars, like the people who have been kicked off the ethics committee because of past issues with the law?

Mr. Paulissen,

After the way Pat Hallisey threw you under the bus and made you sound like a pushover at the last city council meeting, I'm surprised you're still defending his supporters.  But that's neither here nor there; so let's get to your point.  I believe you're referring to Proposition 5 from the 2010 election and only a politican would interpret that as saying we want the Mayor involved in the day-to-day administration of the city.  The actual purpose of that amendment was to make the City Charter conform with State Law regarding requirements for competitive bidding for city procurement.  Obviously the people want their city to conform with State Law.  And as the existing language of the charter (prior to the changes required to implement Proposition 1 from the 2010 election, which were proposed during the same election as this proposition) refers to the Mayor as the executive responsible for day-to-day operations,  the wording of propostion 5 would be in accordance with the strong-mayor form of government (and require further update should proposition 1 also pass).  Furthermore, your claim that the small print made Proposition 1 take precedence over the text of Proposition 5 couldn't be much further from the truth.  In fact, it's only the small print of the wording of proposition 5 (which likely wasn't read by most voters) that could possibly be interpreted as the public supporting a strong-mayor form of government.  In other words, you have NOT made a case that there anything other than a clear mandate to transition to a council-manager form of government.  Nice try, though. 

(If anyone wants to refer to the propositions from the 2010 ballot, you can find them by following links through the Ultimate Clear Lake article referenced here:  https://ballotpedia.org/League_City_Charter_Amendments,_19_%28May_2010%29)