Tag Archives: government transparency

local news

Municipal complex promotes transparency

Princeton’s new municipal complex has lost its “new building” smell after being occupied by the Texas city’s administrative staff for a year.

However, it remains something of an architectural marvel … at least to my eyes.

I have had occasion to visit with senior city staff in recent weeks. I have met with City Manager Derek Borg and some of his administrative officials in rooms designed — in the words of Borg and Mayor Brianna Chacon — to promote governmental transparency.

How does it do that? They have installed lots of glass that otherwise could be walled off from public view.

I recently met with Borg in a conference room next to the city’s development office. As he and I visited, I could see people walking back and forth; most of them were staffers, but I noticed those I presumed to be just plain folks … like me. Therein was the reason, as Borg and Chacon explained it, for installing all that glass in this building.

It certainly provides a spacious working environment for Princeton’s staff. The structure brings the police and fire departments under the same roof as the city administrative staff.

It also does — in its subtle way — give the impression of a transparent operation. Anyone walking into the building can peer through the windows and watch those who work for the public at work on their behalf. I realize it’s mainly symbolic, but the transparent symbolism is important, too.

I find it refreshing, even as I am doing my job as a reporter trying to get information from the various officials who work for my neighbors and me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Princeton takes major step forward

The city my wife and I now call home today took a major step forward with a wind-swept ceremony welcoming the opening of its new municipal complex.

Princeton, Texas, has for a few weeks been operating its city government out of a shiny new complex just east of Princeton High School on the north side of U.S. Highway 380.

They cut a ribbon today, listened to some music from a local band, and served some finger food and assorted treats to those of us who came to the event.

It’s a big deal! Check that … it’s a very big deal!

As City Manager Derek Borg noted, the city moved from its cramped 3,400-square foot city building on Main Street into a rented site on U.S. 380 about two decades ago. Then a landowner donated some property to the city, which then floated some certificates of obligation to pay for construction of what they unveiled officially today.

The complex today comprises about 60,000 square feet — or about 20 times the size of the Main Street office. It will serve the city “for decades to come,” Borg said.

To be clear, they aren’t yet finished putting all the finishing touches on the property surrounding the complex. They’re still laying down sod and are sweeping the dirt off the paved walkways around the wetland next to City Hall.

I just have to tell you, though, that the new complex is beaut.

Mayor Brianna Chacon and Borg both have stipulated that the city hall design featuring lots of glass is meant to symbolize the city’s intent to govern in a “transparent” fashion. Given that I still am new to Princeton, and I lack institutional knowledge of how the city has run until now, I will withhold comment on Princeton’s governmental history.

However, I will offer a word of hope that the symbolism expressed by the design of the municipal complex translates to actual transparency as the city spends the investment we taxpayers are making.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, Uncategorized

City’s transparency a result of an ‘abundance of caution’

You want transparency in local government? You want to see how a certain city in North Texas handles any potential questions about whether its elected governing body is meeting in “secret,” or conducting public business “illegally”?

Farmersville, a Collin County community of roughly 3,500 residents, exercises what City Attorney Alan Lathrom describes as an “abundance of caution” in alerting residents of a “potential quorum” of elected City Council members.

The city posts a “notice of potential quorum” in advance of any event that might draw more than a majority of City Council members into the same room. That includes, as it did in November and December, an announcement of planned Thanksgiving and Christmas parties.

The city’s website contained under its “Council Meetings” tab announcements of those events. The city is not required under state law to post such events, Lathrom. “We just do it out of an abundance of caution,” he said, citing the possibility that inquiring minds might want to know if council members were discussing public business in a setting other than a called public meeting.

Lathrom said the Texas Open Meetings Act makes specific exemptions for social events. Council members are allowed to gather at holiday parties, for example, without it being posted in advance by City Hall, he said.

Lathrom said the city simply is trying to be as transparent as possible by posting these notices of potential quorum.

I stumbled upon the Christmas party notice recently while perusing the Farmersville website in search of some contact information. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised at my discovery. I told Lathrom of my surprise in a phone conversation.

He doesn’t ascribe much in the way of a need to cover the city’s backside. Lathrom simply employs this strategy because, well, it’s the right thing to do.

I have covered many local government bodies over many years as a print journalist. This is the first example I’ve ever seen of a governing entity taking such a proactive posture toward transparency.

We hear occasional gripes from residents that government seeks to do too much of the public’s business improperly or even illegally. Do notices such as this generate a lot of public interest? That’s not likely. At least Farmersville City Hall can declare that it warned residents of a “potential quorum” of City Council members.

I consider that a fairly see-through approach to local government.

education news

School is out, but let’s not lose sight of a noble goal

A group of parents has formed in Amarillo that is demanding “transparency” from the Amarillo Independent School District.

It is called the Parents for Transparency Coalition. The group sprung to life after a high school girls volleyball coach resigned, igniting a controversy surrounding the school board, the administration and alleged interference by a parent in the way the coach was doing her job. The coalition has some specific grievances that is seeks to remedy within the AISD. I am not qualified to discuss the specifics of all that the group is seeking to address.

I do, though, want to take a brief note of the group’s noble goal.

Transparency always, without exception, is better than darkness, or opaqueness in government at any level. That goes for school systems as well as city councils, county commissioners courts, the judiciary at any level and certainly at the federal level.

The Parents for Transparency Coalition believes the AISD is particularly dark and secretive. That is the coalition’s fight to wage. Given that I live far away these days I have little access to the particulars of what irks the coalition’s membership.

However, I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of the overarching message that the coalition is seeking for the public school system. Perhaps there can be a message that needs to be delivered.

It is that the property tax revenue that foots the bill for educating a community’s children comes from the property owners who live within that school district. The vast bulk of that financial burden is borne by the residents, many of whom have children being educated within that system.

Therefore, they have every right to demand full transparency, even while school is out for the summer.

To that end, I stand with the Parents for Transparency Coalition.

local news, Uncategorized

Council is pulling a shroud over transparency

Transparency

Am I understanding this correctly?

The Amarillo City Council — that bastion of transparency and public accountability — is trying to keep secret the process it uses to select its fifth member. Council members are disagreeing over how to proceed.

If memory serves, city voters elected three new fellows to the council in large part because they promised to be more answerable to the public. They were tired of what they alleged was a good ol’ boy star-chamber system of doing business.

Things were going to change, dadgummit!

Well, here we are, more than a year after that election. Councilman Brian Eades is quitting the council effective Aug. 1. The council will have to pick his successor.

I’ve said before that the council makes one hiring decision: the city manager. It now gets to make another one by selecting someone to join its ranks.

This transparency pledge that the new council members made along the campaign trail isn’t that hard to keep.

The council has selected five finalists from a longer list of applicants for Dr. Eades’ seat. We all thought the council was going to interview the finalists in public, asking them a set of questions.

I think that’s a fine idea.

It’s an equally fine idea for the council to deliberate in public about who they like. As I’ve noted before, the Texas Open Meeting Law doesn’t require governing bodies to meet in secret to discuss “personal matters”; it only empowers them to do so. I also could argue that selecting a council member doesn’t fall within the realm of “personnel.”

Who doesn’t favor a more transparent government?

The Amarillo City Council took office this past summer with a new majority of members committing to shining the light on the way it does its job on behalf of the public.

Well, do they — or don’t they — still believe in what they promised?