November 5, 2018

Citizens:

The Zoning Modification for the SE corner was approved by Council 4-2.  A number of us fought the good fight, but lost.  Joe Longoria and Rick Mohrig voted against the ZM.  Thanks Joe and Rick.  Time permitting, I will provide more commentary on the hearing in the coming days.

Watching tonight’s proceedings confirmed what I have gradually been realizing over the last several months.  We are not going to see fundamental change in our City government because of the 2017 election.  Shifting power back to citizens was a nice campaign slogan, but not much more than that.  I really don’t see reform of city processes that would shift power citizens.

I do think the new council members Jamison and Bentley will generally vote for the interests of citizens more than their predecessors.  Both are hard workers.  And I think both are providing and will provide excellent constituent services to citizens–i.e., be responsive to complaints and problems raised by citizens.  However, I don’t see them pushing initiatives to improve our government.  Their allegiance to Joe Lockwood is concerning, especially considering that Lockwood is the most pro-developer member of council.  I get particularly worried about Lockwood’s influence when I hear his half-baked notions of governance (e.g., “citizens don’t care about process, they only care about outcomes”) parroted by other council members.  It was very clear from tonight’s meeting that Lockwood is running the show unchallenged at City Hall, and that is not good for citizens or the City.  Because of his rivalry with Lockwood, Bill Lusk served a useful function of acting as a check on Lockwood.  Unfortunately, there are no longer any checks on Lockwood.  My hope is that a council member will step forward to more forcefully challenge Lockwood.  I am confident that such a council member would garner broad public support.

Advocating for clean, competent, courageous, and citizen-centric government,

Tim