A Jeffersonian In East Texas

Recent developments in the Smith county jail, “Jailzilla” saga and the “Commissioners Gone Wild” comic drama give rise to numerous questions.

Some of these questions are legal, and I do not know the answers, but I will raise them anyway in the hope that someone will.

• The admission that the plans for the latest Smith county jail proposal were prepared in secret, as I understand, is equivalent to an admission of guilt. This law allows for both civil and criminal penalties for violation. In a county bent on maximum penalties, in a state bent on maximum penalties, can we expect maximum penalties for those involved in this crime and cover up?
• Can we expect resignations to occur soon?
• What will become of this jail proposal, or any jail that might be built as a result of this proposal, now that we know that the plans were formulated in violation of state law?
• Will there be an investigation to see what other open meeting and open records laws were violated?
• What other issues, projects, proposals, contracts, or other matters could have been done under cover of darkness, and behind closed doors, and will there be an investigation including an audit?

This situation is the worst sort of behaviour in public officials, secret meetings and cover ups strike at the very heart of why the open records and open meeting laws are in place.

You can call a pig a cow, but it still smells like pork when it’s cooking. Is it a debate or not? I guess that depends on what your definition of is, is! The Smith county jail “Yes” committee at first refused to debate the jail issue, but has now decided that it will participate in a forum of some sort, not a debate. I think I heard a cow oink!

As far as I can tell, the “yes” people are right! When it comes to this issue,  there really is no debate! There is no defensible rationale for building this jail to begin with. The idea is so outrageous that it almost defies words.

The initial “no debate” response is the one we have come to expect. What else could we expect from a group of people who made their plans in secret, somehow hoping that people would vote for the proposition with no information about it, and no real reason for it. The issue here is trust. The county officials who devised this scheme don’t trust us to make the decision they want us to make if we have the information. The logical extension to this is that it is not needed to begin with, and that they are trying to cover that fact. That is known as arrogance! Not only do they not trust us, they think that we are ignorant enough to not see through it!

October 13 at 6:00 PM is the time, the Tyler Public Library is the place, for the Un-Debate.