League City Weekend Update - Politics as Usual

While the Green Team likes to claim they're attempting to restore civility to League City politics, and pretend they are somehow an alternative to the factions that have controlled this city longer than I can remember.  They claim they aren't tied to developer money, despite the fact that their lord and savior, Pat O'Hallisey sure has taken plenty of developer money over the years.  But really, it's more of politics as usual.  Disappointed Democrats, sad to see this region turn red in the last 20 years, and some bitter RINO's have formed a coalition of smarminess and deceit.  They think they can trick the rest of the population into voting for their candidates by cashing in on the general anti-incumbent sentiment that is popular in our country right now.  But the fact is, the people of League City are smarter than these clowns assume (and smarter than most of the clowns, in fact).  The Green Team Progaganda Front (Facebook group League City Politics is a Full Contact Sport) moves seemingly rudderless from rant to rant in hopes of latching onto any possible current discussion as a means to further their anti-Council agenda.  Here's my take on the latest discussions they've had

Campaign Finance Reports

Always exciting reads, especially at the local level, Marc Edelman and Mick Phalen have lead the surge to continue the smear politics of discrediting council candidates because they have received funding from developers.  However, they seem to ignore that, while true that Kinsey got the biggest single donation from a builder, Salcedo and Gripon both got $1,000 donations from Jeff Payson, a builder (Cervelle Homes).  One shouldn't throw stones from glass houses.  Then they latched onto a discussion that only tin foil hat conspiracy theorists would find interesting at all, and launched into hypothesizing why Brenton Spry's address would be listed in Kemah when he donated to Debbie Drury's campaign.  As verified by Mr. Spry's neighbors, it's clear he lives in League City now; however, if you clowns have nothing better to do than worry about this listing, have fun.  Personally, I found it MUCH more interesting to note the following:  Greg Gripon failed to list the occupation or employer for ANY of his donors whatsoever.  Pat Hallisey who hasn't had a paying job that wasn't tied to the city or county in longer than I'm able to find record managed to scrape together $1,100 to fund his puppet for council, and Larry Millican is apparently wealthy enough to loan his campaign a lot of money.  But ultimately, none of that matters to me.  You see, I'm more concerned about the path forward each candidate envisions for this city, how they plan to vote on investing in this city, and how their plans will impact my wallet.

Parking Garages and Other Improvements

Oh the shortsightedness of the Green Team, it would be laughable if they didn't have a real chance of gaining control of our city government.  You clowns rant and rant about the parking garage being proposed as a part of the downtown revitalization plan.  However, all of your arguments are based on a few invalid assumptions:

1. The parking garage isn't needed and won't be utilized
2. The parking garage is going to cost $10mil to the taxpayers of League City
3. The parking garage will negatively impact the surrounding businesses
4. The parking garage is tying up funds that could be used to solve a wealth of potential other challenges faced by League City.

Let's address each of these.  I, personally, have avoided many city functions at League Park due to the lack of available parking.  When I have made it to these events, outside of the humor of Karl Wankowicz hanging out at the Meet the Mayor tents, despite being neither an elected representative of this city nor a city staffer, I have noticed that there are people parking in lawns up and down all the side streets in the area of League Park.  A parking garage could help these homeowners avoid this hassle

The cost to League City residents is going to be substantially lower than the total cost of the project - as the plan is to get grant money to cover 80% of the cost.  This is essentially a net return to the people of League City some of the federal tax dollars we've all involuntarily contributed.  I for one would love to see some of my Fed tax dollars come back to this town instead of being pumped into Obama's programs and other towns. 

Surrounding businesses will see a boost in business thanks to the added businesses that will be surrounding the parking garage.  Spillover effect is real (just ask Karl how many more friends he has since he's latched onto Pat Hallisey's coattails). 

But the last point is the ultimate one, and it highlights how shortsighted the anti-progress Green Team is being - given that 80% of the funding would come from the Feds, only the 20% of the cost could be freed up for other projects.  The whole purpose of this parking garage is an investment in the city that will boost retail sales tax and hotel occupancy tax in the future, thus funding FAR more projects than the 20% investment in a parking garage would fund.  And it just might bring in enough money that in the future our tax rates could be lowered.  Funny how y'all on the Green Team fail to see this, yet then rant that the city didn't lower tax rates the fractions of percentage this year to decrease the unanticipated increase in revenue based on increasing appraised values. 

Latest Galveston Daily News Article

Former Mayor Tim Paulissen, it's truly amazing you didn't win your election for County Commissioner, given just how slimy of a politician you truly are.  I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.  I wanted to believe you the whole time you were Mayor.  But your alliance with the Green Team and the massive amounts of spin with which you've distorted your commentary on current events has taken away that benefit.  Much like I pointed out on the blog earlier, when you tried to pretend that the 2010 propositions showed a public in support of a strong-mayor form of government (which I very clearly explained wasn't the case at all, and to which you have yet to respond, choosing instead to simply drop the discussion as if it never happened), your interpretation now of the Galveston Daily News article regarding the Mayor trying to research the nature of the exit of city staff in recent years borders between comedy and super-slimy spin.  Let's break down your comments (reference the bottom of this post), and those of the people who responded to you bit by bit (since that's how I like to do things, baby steps, so the simpletons of Team Green can follow along like a color by numbers picture). 

1.  Mr. Mallios wants to praise you for admitting you were wrong.  But I don't think you actually regret anything you've ever done, I think you just didn't anticipate you were hiring someone with a backbone that would stand up to your team, and now you're saddened to see that there is pushback.

2.  The City Council still controls the vision.  While the CM has clearly submitted many thoughts that the council has implemented, that doesn't mean he's controlling the vision.  If I were on council in a council-manager form of government, I would EXPECT my city manager to present me with plans, ideas, options that should contribute to the vision.  Otherwise, he would just be a city administrator at best.  But of course, you are still bitter that you weren't a "strong-mayor", and you're saddened that your buddy Pat isn't one now.  Much harder to reap the benefits of a spoils system for your political machine when there is a professional and skilled City Manager gumming up the works, eh?

3.   While high turnover is disappointing in general, and often points to there being an issue, I love that former mayor Paulissen and the LCPIAFCS clowns have jumped to assuming the problem is the City Manager.  Here's some other equally valid possibilities that y'all are ignoring

• The Mayor!  Considering that just last week at the council meeting, Mr. Dill (who serves on the Finance Committee) had to once again remind the Mayor that no member of council should be running around on their own getting involved in the day-to-day operations of the city, obstructing the duties of the city staff, and causing problems, it would be seriously negligent to ignore the Mayor's role in staff turnover in League City!  And while we're on the Mayor - who was the source that triggered this article in the Galveston Daily News?  Given that the City Manager refused to comment, I highly doubt this was his doing (as Mr. Brown wants to believe).  Given that the first sentence mentions the Mayor's name, and the first quote is attributed to him, I find it VERY likely he is contacting the paper, trying to spin his latest witch hunt effort to come off as Pat O'Hallisey, the Great Irish Protector of League City, which is not only highly unprofessional, particularly as this article is starting to get into HR issues, which should never be aired as dirty laundry, but also further demonstration of his desire to violate the City Charter which provides for a council-manager form of government.  I bet the council is having second thoughts about their vote to NOT pursue action on the complaint about the mayor.  And while we're on the topic of inappropriate involvement, why is the mayor's wife advertising HR issues (informing the LCPIAFCS clowns that the HR director is gone as of Thursday) and then promising to find out if the HR director was fired or resigned.  First of all, if our city is run at all like a business, that type of information shouldn't be given out to anyone (much like an employer would only confirm whether someone previously worked for them or not) and only would reveal the nature of someones break with the employer should they be given permission to do so.  Mrs. O'Hallisey - you were NOT elected by the people, please stay out of the day to day operations of our city.
• You Clowns on LCPIAFCS - The turnover seems to be the highest at the highest levels of city staffing.  These are the people who are required to attend the City Council meetings.  If I had to sit there with a straight face while clowns came in and complained about the mayor's office not being fancy enough, or our logo being sailboats instead of oak trees, or any of the multitude of ridiculous things that Heins, Barr, Mallios, Wankowicz, and Lass like to complain about, I'd be looking for a new job too!
• Political Volatility - Given the amount of disgust which you clowns show for the city staff and the way you are headhunting the City Manager and the City Attorney, the city staff are probably all terrified of what would happen should the Green Team take power in the next election.  Concerns about stability would lead many to seek other opportunities for employment.
• Asking too much for too little.  I've pointed out in numerous other posts that the clowns backing the Green Team have expectations that clearly nobody could ever meet, given the completely illogical pairing of such keep-my-taxes-low-at-all-costs types like John Bowen and Mick Phalen, with the tax-and-spend liberals like Chris John Mallios and all the special interests like the Dog Park Kelley's, and perhaps the same has happened with our city staff.  We're wanting them to accomplish massive amounts of work and not rewarding them accordingly.  When you work a lot for too little pay, you look for a new opportunity.

These are just 4 possibilities that y'all have totally ignored (my personal belief is that the Mayor has a lot to do with it), but I'm sure there's plenty of other possibilities.  And instead, y'all want to lay all of this solely on the City Manager.  Good job, supersleuths.

One further topic was brought up in an attempt to discredit the city manager while y'all were commenting on the former mayor's post, and it also needs clarification.  Kimberly Patrick Harmon brought up that the City Manager brought forward the study regarding the parking garage for vote with one bid.  Brian Brown, in his eagerness to demonstrate his lack of Google skills, jumped on the bandwagon and cited Texas local government code requirements for purchases, and then Byram Lass chimed in with some NASA-geek non-related nonsense.  Let's clear all of that up:

1) There is no requirement for professional services to seek multiple bids if any of the list of exemptions in section 252.022 apply (Brian Brown, you should have read further down, assuming you got your information from www.statues.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/LG/htm/LG.252.htm ) - you're looking for section 252.022 (4)a procurement for personal, professional, or planning services. 

2) If you had paid any attention to the deputy city manager, they don't even know anyone else to contact for bids to perform such a study.

There's nothing nefarious going on here, but you can keep your tin foil hats on, if you like.

3) Kimberly Patrick Harmon - as presented at the council meeting, the bill for this study was under $200k.  Please explain why you interpret this as "nearly a million dollar expense".

When y'all lie, exaggerate, and spin in this manner, all you're doing is making your Green Team look petty and dishonest.  




Reference - Tim Paulissen's comments from the LCPIAFCS group, on Friday, October 14th, 4:59 PM:
"Just finished the story on the front page of the Galveston County Daily News and it brings to mind a question that I asked Mr. Rohr in the beginning about the rumor that he comes in and runs off all the staff.  He assured me that he would not be the case.  Fast forward to today, and the city has gone through lots of staff.  He needs to go.  My biggest mistake was saying okay to his hiring.  Credit to Mr. OKeefe, everyone pressured him to give him the green light, he had big reservations.  Can't remember if Mr OKeefe voted for him or not.  To everyone who reads this, my apologies.  He is supposed to run day-to-Day, not run the vision.  That governance policy is BS and we all know that.  Vote for the green team, so we will have the votes to send him packing!"