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| I look forward to the day when Garland municipal elections are free from a system that bullies and ALL citizens are encouraged to run for public office, including those not anointed by the small insider crowd here. |
But another gi-nor-mous flush occurs in Garland during the lead-up time to the Garland municipal elections. It's the flushing out of the city's political machinery as it is laid bare and demonstrates, with the veil pulled back, just how the election process operates in our town.
What's flushed out is the regular, unmasked effort that occurs to keep as many opponents as possible out of any mayoral and city council races that might be on the horizon.
On January 16, Scott LeMay, who will term out on the Garland City Council in May, announced that he will seek the Garland mayor's position. The seat for a two-year term will be open on the city election May 4.
Then, only three days later, in the wake of that announcement, the current mayor, Lori Barnett Dodson, elected just last May 5—261 days ago—in a race that cost more than $65,000 for the campaign and her portion (about $52,000) mostly paid for by three powerful PAC's, announced that a longtime goal of hers was that Scott would succeed her in the mayor's spot. Lori had been elected to fill a one-year unexpired term of Mayor Doug Athas, who resigned. Now she, too, will step aside in May.
(For specific details about the finances of last spring's mayoral election, please read my Louis Moore of Garland blog on September 26, 2018.)
During the 2018 campaign Lori did not state to the public that she intended to be a 1-year (not even a one-term) mayor nor that she would not seek re-election when her time in office was up this year.
However, privately all along it was believed that Lori indeed would turn over her role in 2019 and would maneuver so Scott, her colleague first on the Garland Plan Commission and then later on City Council, hopefully could fulfill his longtime ambition to be in the mayor's seat.
Those two announcements paired so closely together set up the first plank in the strategy: with an insider power duo such as this positioning themselves to look so formidable, what Garlandite in his/her right mind would want to challenge?
If the pairing of those announcements didn't flush out enough of the system, the deep-pocketed Garland Firefighters Association, which spent $22,408.48 to get Lori elected less than a year ago, jumped in a few hours after her announcement with a full, glowing endorsement of Scott for mayor. The group didn't even wait to see who else would file for the office. (The deadline for filing is February 15—almost a month from the time of their announcement.) They had their candidate figured out, even before seeing whether there were any other worthy mayoral candidates from which to choose.
Now we have an even stronger triad presented. Surely anyone contemplating tossing his/her hat in the ring—knowing they almost certainly would be outspent from the get-go—now would for sure turn tail and run, right?
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| During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. government sent election teams to different world hot spots to monitor elections to be sure they were fair and free of interference and bullying by dictatorial governments. Wonder what those teams would say today if invited to observe Garland's elections, which are controlled by a tiny handful of mostly Anglo voters? |
I recognize this strategy clearly, because I've seen it before in another great Garland "flush", when the city's political machine was flushed out in a campaign strategy for the District 1 council seat. At that time former Mayor Douglas Athas and his campaign treasurer, Stan Luckie, decided to push sitting council member Tim Campbell out and fill his seat on council with current Councilmember David Gibbons.
The plan at that time—nearly a year before the next District 1 election—was to scare Campbell (who sided against Athas many times on council) out of running for re-election by convincing him that he faced a well-financed, politically powerful, and savvy opponent who stood a great chance of ousting him.
I know this because Luckie invited me to a private breakfast at the IHOP in Firewheel with Gibbons present to introduce me to Gibbons and to secure my and Kay's endorsement and support for Gibbons. At the time he explained the strategy.
I told Stan we would endorse Gibbons and contribute to Gibbon’s campaign ONLY IF Councilmember Campbell voluntarily on his own accord decided to step aside and state publicly that he would not seek a third two-year term. I didn't like one bit the idea of scaring Tim out of office.
Eventually after Campbell was confronted with the reality of overwhelming opposition, Campbell suddenly and unexpectedly announced that he would not seek reelection to a third two-year term due to family responsibilities.
Somehow Luckie and Athas seemed to manage also to discourage any other opponents to Gibbons in that District 1 council election, and it spilled over into the next election cycle as well, so Gibbons sits on council today three years later without ever having received the vote of one single voter in District 1.
Absolutely nothing about this is illegal. Some cynically might even say (complete with eye-roll), "Just politics". But I repeat an earlier theme of many of my blogs. Actions such as this thwart the democratic process and deprive Garlandites their rights as American citizens.
With this type of strategy, the decision about who will hold public office here is cut-and-dried. The average Garlandite, who might feel inspired to serve his/her community and contemplate filing in an upcoming election, can clearly see he/she wouldn't get to first base. The decision is already made. This is why so few Garland elections are actually contested and so few citizens here actually vote in our municipal elections.
This was exemplified by a question posed to me this week by a citizen who was responding in the wake of the week's announcements: "YOU'RE not planning to run for mayor again, ARE YOU?" (In other words, "You wouldn't THINK of that kind of political suicidal move, WOULD YOU?") The individual clearly was flowing right along with the Goliath vs. David image already.
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| The Garland Firefighters Association is the only group of City of Garland employees which actually funds a PAC from their city paychecks and in turn distributes those funds to candidates it favors in city elections. Ironically, 95% of Garland firefighters do NOT live in Garland. |
The organization is clearly looking for a politician who will "carry their water" for them and their agenda—whatever it happens to be at the moment. Recently the association's greatest concern has been the city's RSB contribution (retirement stabilization benefit) to civil service employees. This got a beyond-recommended financial boost this year after some council members made a last-minute push.
Early last year the group's leader, David Riggs of Sulphur Springs, made a day-long visit to our home, concluding his extended stay by telling us he expected the group probably would not endorse for mayor since two equally qualified candidates seemed to be lining up for the race.
Then weeks later, after the firefighters endorsed Lori Dodson for mayor, Riggs indicated he didn't think the union-like organization would be spending much money, if any, on her mayoral campaign.
Government records in Garland and Austin, however, showed the association ultimately spent $22,408.48 on Dodson's short-lived mayoral stint—the largest amount this group of city employees has ever spent on any Garland election.
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| The Garland Firefighters Association did a much better job in last fall's statewide elections after it was pointed out that its signs in last spring's municipal elections were misleading because the word "Association" was missing, thus inferring that Garland firefighters personally were endorsing candidates even though 95% of them don't live in Garland.. |
The firefighters association is the only group of city employees that exerts a powerful force over Garland municipal elections. Many other groups of city employees such as the parks department, library department, streets department, engineering department, etc., also could benefit from such influence but instead choose to let Garland citizens who live here, pay taxes here, and vote here to exercise their rightful dominant role in our city's elections.
The citizens of Garland are already restless about the size and scope of the proposed upcoming bond election. For the tiny group who have run this city for decades to play out their routine "politics as usual" game is risky and isn't a wise decision, especially at this time.
This election needs to be about openness and honesty—transparency that convinces the voting public to trust our elected officials with managing a loan (using long-term bonds) larger than anything Garland has ever attempted.
My concerns have nothing to do with the qualifications or integrity of any of the current candidates for public office. This by no means is a commentary on whether any of these individuals would be a good mayor or councilmember. It also is not a commentary on the qualifications or integrity of current officeholders who might owe their current seats to such a machine.
My concern is with a corrupt political system that is not built on trust, democratic principles, openness, and transparency. These are all hallmarks of our American society. They need to be descriptions of Garland's political system as well.
"Tell the truth and trust the people" is a wise old cliche that gets to the heart of my concerns for Garland. While our citizens are as a whole less educated and less wealthy than citizens in surrounding cities to the east, north, and west, they are no less worthy of the voting responsibilities and privileges vested in them by the U.S. Constitution and the constitution and laws of the State of Texas. All of our citizens of voting age regardless of race, creed, color, religion, gender, national origin, or political affiliation should be encouraged to vote in our municipal elections and given equal opportunity and access to the processes in this city.
And if they express an interest, these same citizens deserve the right—and encouragement and respect—to file for public office in our city without artificial qualifications or barriers imposed on them by one special-interest group or another. A private citizen wishing to run for office should not feel outspent, outgunned, and out-strategized before he or she even files.
Lori says that for Scott to succeed her was aspired to when she first ran for mayor a year ago. I don't recall when and where that was publicly stated before now.
When she contacted me twice about a year ago to try to persuade me to endorse her—which, if I had, would have meant I would not run myself in last year's mayoral election—she said nothing about a plan to move out of the way for Scott. Most people in the general public appear to have thought she was in it for the duration.
The political strategist who was behind the situation with Tim Campbell in District 1 is Stan Luckie—former president of the Garland Chamber, former president of the board of the now-defunct Baylor Garland Hospital, former Garland Plan Commissioner, former Mr. Everything-behind-the-scenes in Garland. For years Stan Luckie maintained with me privately that I should stay behind the scenes, never run for public office, and exert influence just like he and some other political strategists have done for decades here. Obviously I disagreed with him and others like him.
I served for many years alongside Stan, Lori, and Scott on the city's Plan Commission.
I sense Stan's hand—either directly or indirectly—in all that is occurring now. Or some of his disciples have learned their lessons well.
A system that bullies has no place whatsoever in Garland municipal politics! It has no place in our county, state, or national politics either.
We need to rid our city completely of this political masquerade.
Interestingly the plan to oust one of the former mayor's foes and put in a supporter in Gibbons backfired. Gibbons eventually switched sides and helped lead the public and behind-the-scenes battle to run off Mayor Athas before Athas' third and final two-year term ended, thus opening the 1-year position as mayor which Lori, Athas' political opponent, then filled.
Shortly after being sworn in he immediately allied with Councilmember Rich Aubin of District 5 and others in the battle against Athas.
Gibbons was also the only city councilmember who made a contribution to Lori's campaign that was large enough ($100.00) to warrant separate listing in her required election campaign filings. Luckie usually advises his disciples who are on city boards and commissions to contribute $50 or less in cash which can't be traced in the records to an individual. Gibbons apparently missed that lesson.
So that brings us back to the upcoming May 4, 2019, Garland mayoral election and the political dynamics being flushed to the surface right now.
The people who ran off the former mayor are acting like the pigs in George Orwell's classic Animal Farm. In that story, a thinly veiled satire about the communists in the former Soviet Union, the pigs lead the insurrection to oust the corrupt humans running the farm, only to fall back themselves into the same old ways that the humans behaved which precipitated the revolution in the first place.
I'm glad to see that the Garland Firefighters Association has made strides toward honesty and transparency. I hope that group will continue on that path and ultimately decide to refrain from exerting influence in city political races. (And, as I've said before, my concerns have nothing to do with my esteem for the outstanding work that the Garland firefighters do in our city. It pertains to the way the local firefighters' union-like association and its PAC conduct themselves in city elections.)
Running for public office in this city is not—and never should be—a crime, just because the tiny in-crowd holding the reigns of power so tightly in their hands hasn't blessed it. This is, after all, the United States of America—not the old, defunct Soviet Union nor Communist China under Chairman Mao.
Garland and ALL its citizens deserve much, much better!
My hope for Garland is that some day, some how, we will become "that shining light on the hill" for democracy and all that is good about our American system.
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| Do Garland citizens feel as though they are being told who their leaders will be before the elections are even held? |
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