Roger Estlack

Local government is a participatory process.

That means local taxing entities, by law, take certain steps to keep the public informed; and citizens then have the duty to learn from that information, add input when they feel led to do so, and vote when the time comes.

Or at least that’s the way it is supposed to work.
Often times, citizens are so caught up in their daily busy lives that it becomes easy to not pay attention to what ordinance the city aldermen just passed or what tax rate the county commissioners want to adopt. But it really takes only a little time – just long enough to read your local newspaper, for example.

As citizens, we often don’t know what exactly is going on in Washington, DC, or even closer to home in Austin. The federal and state governments are distant; and although our representatives try to stay in touch with local folks, it’s a daunting task for a voter to keep fully informed about the latest bill before Congress or the myriad of issues that accompany the state budget ever two years.

But things are geared differently for the governments that are closest to the people. Cities, counties, schools, and other local districts are governed right here at home by people that most of you know personally; and their proceedings are required to be conducted in the public view.

For several weeks now, local boards have met to discuss budgets and taxes. The meetings were open to the public, and anyone was welcome to attend and find out what was discussed. Of course, it’s not practical for every citizen to attend every meeting, so that’s where your local paper comes in. We attend those meetings for you when we can and do our best to find out what happened at those we miss.

After much work and number crunching, your local boards propose budgets and tax rates and then, by law, they take out an ad in your local paper – sometimes pretty sizeable ads – to let you know that, “Hey, we’re going to raise your taxes,” or “Hey, we’ve got a budget here you might be interested in.”

They even announce the dates and times for additional public meetings to let you have your say about these issues.

The people are then given a few days during which they can get copies of these public documents before hearings are held. And at the hearings you have the opportunity to address these boards. You can say, “Hey, guys, this tax is too high” or “Hey, I appreciate you guys holding the line on expenses and keeping my taxes low.” Or you could even say, “Gentlemen, I really wish you’d raise my taxes just enough to fix the pothole in my street.”

Over the last 14 years, your editor has been to many public hearings. Most of them pass quietly without any hoopla. Occasionally, a citizen will get worked up about something and show up to gripe, which is their right and certainly part of the process. But for the most part, the board will call a public hearing to order, they may acknowledge that the newspaper representative is present, and then we all stare blankly at each other for a few seconds before the hearing is officially closed.

It can be kind of frustrating really. A lot of time, effort, and money go into public hearings. It is a shame that most people will never attend one.

Nevertheless, the newspaper and the governments will keep doing our parts in this process. They will keep conducting their affairs in the sunshine and giving you proper notice of important decisions, and we will be around to make sure they are doing things right and doing our best to keep you informed.

But after that, as always, it’s up to you do your part.

Get informed, attend a hearing, speak out if you want to, send a letter to the editor, and go vote when elections roll around. Give your elected leaders some kudos when they deserve them, and give them some static when they deserve that. Be involved and be cordial. But without your participation, your representatives have nothing to lead them as they make the important decisions that will be impacting your lives and your pocketbooks.

That’s the process, and it’s a good one. But it takes all of us.

Upcoming Public Hearings

August 19 – Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District, 1:30 p.m., White Deer.

August 19 – Clarendon College District, 11:30 a.m., Bairfield Activity Center VIP Room.

August 24 – City of Clarendon, 5:30 p.m., Burton Memorial Library.

August 30 – Hedley School District, 6:30 p.m., Hedley School Library.

August 31 – Clarendon School District, 7 p.m., CISD Administration & Technology Building.

September 2 – City of Hedley, 7 p.m., City Hall.

September 7 & 10 – Donley County, 9 a.m., Courthouse Commissioners’ Courtroom.

Streets have been a problem for Clarendon for decades; and although the Board of Aldermen has tried to tackle the issue many times, it continues to plague the city. We have a great community, but many of our streets are frankly an embarrassment and a disgrace.

A typical example of this is the streets around the baseball fields. We have better ball park facilities than most towns our size, but you can’t drive past them without risking the well being of your car or causing brain damage to your passengers. Drive too fast down Sixth Street with your infant, and the little tyke could well end up with shaken baby syndrome.

Currently a city crew is trying its darnedest to patch our thousands of potholes. They have made some progress, but it’s a massive undertaking to say the least, and it’s seems clear that they don’t have all the resources they need for the chore.

City Hall also had planned to seal coat about ten blocks this year, but estimates came in higher than expected (big surprise), and they only had enough money to do nine blocks. Some city leaders wanted to seal coat as many of the new streets as possible and take care of what’s still paying for, and others wanted to seal coat or work on older streets. The results last week: No action.

The streets that were paved in 2005 do need to be seal coated on a regular basis to preserve them, but the larger problem is the older streets. Spending $20,000 to seal coat streets such as Fourth from Koogle to Jefferson would be a waste of time and money because frankly there isn’t much left to seal.

The city has two years left on its payments for the new streets. The original plan five years ago was to pay for those streets and then do another big paving project. That’s still a good idea, but what do we do in the meantime to keep people from losing their front end on the way to the post office? Two years is a long time, and the city can’t afford to wait until 2012 to think about a solution.

City Hall should develop an aggressive plan to tackle this issue – smoothing out the rough places while protecting the investment that has been made in the new streets. Figuring out how to do that with the limited resources available to the city will be a challenge, but a solution needs to be found because this has gone on long enough.

A recent poll on ClarendonLive.com found that 65 percent of those responding wanted the streets to be the city’s top priority. It is time for city leaders to deliver on this issue. If it means other priorities have to take a backseat, that’s fine. We can delay adding new office space in City Hall or codifying ordinances (for the second time) if it means seeing real results on the roads.

As city leaders look for a new administrator, knowledge of street and infrastructure improvements needs to be at the top of their “wish list” as much as knowledge of municipal finances and grant writing, and other qualifications. We don’t need our top man (or woman) putting dirt in potholes, but we do need someone who knows how it should be done and knows how to allocate the resources to see that business is taken care of.

Mosque not the main issue at Ground Zero

Conservatives across the nation are all abuzz about a planned mosque near Ground Zero – the former site of the World Trade Centers in New York.

A planning board in that city gave the project a green light, but opponents say the planned 13-story Islamic center would be an insult to the people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and a sort of victory for the terrorists.

I disagree. The insult isn’t so much the planned mosque as it is the vacant spots where the Twin Towers once stood.

Generally speaking, a mosque or a synagogue or a church is a celebration of our religious freedom in this nation. As New York Mayor Bloomberg correctly pointed out, the firemen rushing into save people that fateful day didn’t stop to ask what God the person believed in.

It’s been nearly nine years since the towers fell. Long before now, they should have been re-constructed exactly as they were, or new, more magnificent towers should have been erected in their place.

The fact that we’re left with two holes in the ground is a sad commentary on the state of our nation. We’ve gone from a country that did great things and built buildings that soared to great heights to a country that wrings its hands in fear of offending someone.

Instead of second-guessing “Freedom Tower” designs and protesting the construction of a house of worship, America should just move forward and come back stronger than ever before.

Let them build the mosque but rebuild the Twin Towers, too. Now that would be a testament to the greatness of America.