Think 'Dynasty'—Garland's political system needs radical overhaul opening elections and participation processes to ALL voters—not just the chosen few

Garland's City Council was never designed to be a self-perpetuating board, yet its failure to work to widen the tent to encourage ALL voters to participate in elections leaves it susceptible to dynasty building. Pictured here is the council in 2014.

Even though Garland's City Council members have term limits, the most politically ambitious among them sometimes find ways to extend their political influence long after they are off the dais.

That does not necessarily mean that they run for mayor or another public office either.

One such way is to recruit—then mentor—a successor for their council seat (or mayoral seat). The recruit then often feels compelled to perpetuate the former councilmember's legacy, agenda, pet projects, and special interests.

I call this dynasty-building. The incumbent doesn't really leave office but instead welcomes a successor who the incumbent then tries to control or maneuver—once again robbing the voters of their right to choose candidates freely and fairly.

The action gives the appearance of a self-perpetuating board of directors rather than a democratically elected body representing a large population.

It's one more way our city government is set up to suppress voters and keep citizens at arms-length from holding their rightful place as the real bosses/employers of the council.

Instead of allowing the political processes to work normally and in healthy ways—with qualified candidates rising to the top naturally and then squaring off against each other in a fair election—the incumbent steps into the background and tries to become a puppeteer pulling strings for his or her preferred successor.

I was reminded of this recently when one councilmember mentioned rather casually that a soon-to-be retiring councilmember was experiencing difficulty recruiting a candidate as a successor.

Why, I immediately wondered, does that incumbent councilmember need to become concerned with this matter? Shouldn't successors rise like cream from the raw milk of voter rolls? Why is this considered a prerogative of a sitting council-seatholder?

With so much apathy among Garland voters, this little two-step recruitment dance often goes unnoticed.

I was an eyewitness to this dynasty-building operation back in 2012.

More than six years ago, then-District 2 City Councilmember Laura "Perky" Cox wanted me to run for her council seat, once she termed out.

Perky was the councilmember who first appointed me to the Plan Commission nearly 12 years ago.

I was honored to be appointed by her to the Plan Commission and doubly honored that Perky wanted me to succeed her as the councilmember for District 2.

Deep in my heart, however, I didn't believe running for council at that time (2012) was right for me. I knew I had much work to do in my own neighborhood, which was suffering greatly from numerous issues that required serious attention from the city and school district. (As bad as things were then, we didn't know whether we would even be able to continue to live in District 2.) I was concerned I, as a councilmember, might run into some conflicts of interest with the city on some of those matters, so I took the ethical route and bowed out of running for office.

I also wondered whether Perky, a lawyer with an impressive resume and a commanding personality, would have a difficult time allowing me to steer an independent course—letting me be my own person on council.

Anyone who knows me quickly learns that I'm my own person. I make up my own mind about issues, people, and events. I am happy to have all the facts placed on the table. I am eager to hear other people's opinions. I seldom make snap judgments. In fact, I make it a habit—and encourage others to do so—to gain as much information on a topic as I can before I make up my mind and express an opinion. It's fine with me if other people don't agree with me, and I respect them for that.

I've been on dozens of public and private boards at the local, state, national, and international level. Those boards span the horizon from journalism to banking to religion to secular non-profits. My experience has been broad-based and has reached far beyond Garland. My peers on all those boards quickly learn my independent streak. In other words, peer pressure doesn't sway me much at all. I would never fit into a power bloc or clique on any board. I'm not a "party" person. I don't vote along "party lines". After being fully informed, I vote my conscience and what I believe to be right.

And if I discover by acquiring additional accurate information that I'm wrong, I'm always willing to back up and make a quick u-turn to put me back on the track I feel is best. I've demonstrated this on Plan Commission again and again.

I've had lots and lots of practice with that style over the years through many opportunities. And I am very comfortable with it.

But I also am loyal, so while I said "no" to Perky about running to succeed her, I also pledged to support whatever candidate she leaned toward in the election. I owed Perky a lot for introducing me to Garland city government—after my first mentor, Ed Jackson, introduced me to Perky. I didn't want to disappoint her, but I made the decision that I knew was right for me and for the City of Garland.

She strongly backed Eric Redish, a young man whose credentials at first seemed impressive.

Eric had some things about him that current District 2 Councilmember Anita Goebel and her supporters quickly seized on and threw at him with a hurricane force.

I never actually met Eric, though Kay and I contributed money to his campaign and put his signs in our yard. When Anita stopped by our home to ask for our support for her campaign, we told her it was nothing personal against her, that we liked her, but that we must decline. We told her we are people of our word and we had given our word to Perky that we would support her candidate. We were determined to honor our word. We are not like some local, state, and national politicos who change their commitments with every wind that blows by.

I watched as Perky worked herself tirelessly to get Eric elected. She and her family members went door-to-door in District 2 at an exhausting pace.

Perky's diligent work nearly paid off. Eric came within only five votes of winning the general election. Had only three people switched sides in the May 2012 General Election, Perky's candidate, Eric Redish, would be in the seat Anita Goebel now occupies and which is the center of so much controversy.

I sometimes wondered whether Perky wanted Eric to be elected more than Eric, deep down, wanted to be elected.

A few days before the General Election in 2012 Perky arrived at our home for a meeting in which she was for the first time to introduce Eric to Kay and me. The clock ticked by for hours as we waited for Eric to arrive.

Morning turned to lunchtime. No Eric. Lunchtime turned to mid-afternoon. And still no Eric. Kay even wrote another check to Eric's campaign, thinking that was the reason for Perky's extended stay.

We sensed something could be dreadfully wrong.

A few days later came the cliffhanger election in which Eric barely lost—and then the explosion that changed District 2 forever. After the election results were in, Eric made it quite clear that he did not want the incumbent councilmember, Perky, so heavily involved in his campaign any longer.

While my heart took note admirably of his independence, my mind said that Eric had made a questionable political blunder by his choice of words and timing.

Perky backed off from the runoff election. We took down our Eric Redish signs and waited to see would happen next.

Much to everyone's surprise except ours, Anita Goebel won the run-off election by 51 votes. (2012 general election results: Eric Redish 300 votes; Anita Goebel 269; Arlene Beasley 39; Redish lost by 5 votes. In the runoff, Goebel 282 and Redish 231; Goebel won by 51 votes.)

For the next two election cycles (2014 and 2016) Anita never drew an opponent, so no election occurred and she was re-elected unanimously by city council. We did, however, promise to support her each time, if she did have an opponent, even offering to hold a fundraising event in our home.

Eventually Eric left Garland, and I started thinking about what lessons were to be learned by that experience.

I began to realize how unwise it is for incumbent city councilmembers and mayors to try to influence who their successors should be—to create a de facto dynasty whereby the incumbent is able to vicariously extend his or her term "in office".  

There's nothing wrong with councilmembers or mayors having personal preferences about who they'd like to see in office; after all, they are voters in their district, too. And there's nothing wrong with a councilmember's cordially answering questions from would-be successors who might want to throw their hat in the ring.

But as I've said in other blogs, Garland's political system is set up to be very, very biased toward incumbents. Once in office, an incumbent city councilmember or mayor has lots of means at his or her disposal to further his or her grip on future city elections. This is another subtle way Garland city politics operate to keep elections few and interested voters and candidates even fewer—and at arm's length.

The deck is stacked against a newcomer to city politics, unless that person has the backing of the incumbent in that office or from some other very powerful person in the community.

Nationally, the public is crying out loudly against such an incumbent-favored, power-broker-laden system. "Term limits" is only a part of the war cry we are hearing.

Rigged elections and favoring incumbents or their anointed is one of many concerns I have about our current city charter and the careless way it has not been updated in a decade.

Just this week we've learned how outdated our city charter is on a number of other issues, including a recall petition. What the charter says about recall elections is trumped by newer Texas legislation, which itself favors incumbents. What a mess! And why wasn't this confusion straightened up years ago? With the state seemingly on the offensive against its larger cities, our charter needs to be reviewed and revised any time the Texas Legislature meets and adopts anything that changes the actual wording or meaning in our charter.

Because of the lax way the city has managed its charter for the last decade, Councilmember Goebel, the subject of the current recall petition, gets to stay in office until May when the next election under Texas law can be held—and also which coincides with when she terms out as a city councilmember. Regardless how many signatures are on the recall petitions—currently more than three times the number of votes that propelled her into office—her decision to resign effective May 5, 2018, means she gets to stay put and finish her third and final term.

While some have erroneously tried to cast the recall position (spearheaded mainly by women) as an anti-woman effort, the root of the rebellion was discontent in her district and among some of her original supporters. She also already had voters in her district upset with her for a variety of issues—failure to return phone calls and answer emails, failure to respond to their concerns in a professional manner, failure to support all neighborhoods, and being too heavily influenced by people who don't live or vote in District 2.

So what good is the recall petition wording in the city charter except to frustrate voters and protect incumbents?

I've already written about how the charter is written to favor incumbent city councilmembers by forcing potential opponents off boards and commissions—to stifle potential candidates and the need for city elections. City Council meetings this week pointed out how ineffective and outdated the recall-election language in the city charter is.

Now I'm beginning to understand how the system is set up so that incumbents get to choose their own successors, too—like a self-perpetuating board of directors. Nothing in the charter prevents them from doing that.

In addition, guess who gets to call a "charter review committee" and decide which nine members get to sit on it? Any changes that committee proposes can't go to the voters unless city council gives its approval. In other words, before any changes to the charter can go to the voters, the incumbent city council members get to decide what the citizens will be able to vote on. Ever heard of the expression, "the fox guarding the hen-house door"?

Nothing about Garland city government surprises me anymore. The system needs a radical overhaul opening up the election and participation processes to ALL citizens—not just the chosen few who are mostly whites with a sprinkling of nonwhites.

As one leading community leader said to me at a recent Christmas party, "I can't believe a person can get elected to city council in this city with just 200 to 300 votes." That's sad but true and not just in District 2 either!

For a city of 237,000 citizens, with some 88,000 voters living in eight city council districts, the tiny number needed to win is truly astounding! The 281 votes Anita received was about 2.5% of all the voters in her district. Actually it's rather frightening that so many citizens care so little about our local government that they don't bother to get involved or vote. 

Unfortunately, many of our local politicians would just as soon leave it that way and do nothing to change it. I was lectured recently by a city politico who claimed that Garland's large Hispanic community doesn't vote in elections, and anyone running for office should ignore them. I don't believe that. Rather than be persuaded to accept that myth, I saw that comment as a call to arms to figure out ways to make sure ALL CITIZENS are assured of their right to vote and are encouraged to vote and participate in our government.

Also regretfully, the charter does not allow for a "constitutional convention" like our U.S. constitution does. Otherwise, I would recommend it.

Only an effective mayor and council members with hearts for true reform and ALL CITIZENS will resolve the damaging issues that are mounting day by day in the City of Garland!

(graphics represent sample political signage)