Whatpartofno.com had a short piece on the Tyler paper poll this morning, I have been wondering how it would come out, and the results show that 65% of the people who took the poll believe that the jail proposal will fail! The poll in the Tyler paper will be wrong for some obvious reasons. My guess is that we will see something more along the line of 75% opposition when the voting is done.

It is my personal belief, that when this happens, our County Judge and commissioners court should withdraw all opposition to the Attorney generals ruling, and save the taxpayers any further cost in supporting this “windmill tilting” exercise,  and then, offer their resignations immediately! They are obviously out of touch with what the public wants and needs, and should clear the way for new officials with more clear headed thinking and transparency!

County and city government in Tyler and Smith county Texas needs to be put back into the hands of the people. It is no place for secret, clandestine meetings designed to prevent the public from having input in the system. We need to remember this, after the last vote is counted. There will still be desperate attempts to resurect this issue, and we should continue to fight it until more reasonable methods have had a chance to work, and until transparency in county government has been sufficiently demonstrated to insure that no further “behind closed door” dealings poison the democratic process!

In a thinly veiled attempt to push the Smith county jail bond, the Tyler paper has once again presented us with a course on how not to be balanced in reporting! If it was an attempt to be balanced, it failed miserably! Just more of the same mainstream media madness, that we have come to expect on this issue.

The title is of interest however: “Smith County Jail Bond: What Are We Paying For?” It is a good question! Well, here is the real answer:

• We are paying for a lawyer to fight against us while representing the interests of a small group of political elitists in our county.

• We are paying the salaries of a small group of political elitists in our county who want to keep information from us on an issue that we are expected to cast ballots on in a few days.
• We paid their salaries while they held secret meetings in violation of the states open meeting act.
• We are paying for jail overcrowding which they themselves could have prevented if they had really wanted to.
• We are paying the costs of the Attorney General spending time fighting them against us.

Something that has puzzled me for a while about Smith county officials in their self destructive quest to get a new jail, and keep the truth from the people, is why?

Once, in a conversation about the old “MAD” agreement, that is, “Mutually Assured Destruction” to those of you who might be too young to remember the cold war, I was arguing in favor of the idea. One of the other participants pointed out to me, that I would be right, except for the fact that I was thinking like a logical person, and proceeded to remind me that perhaps, not everyone who has a finger on a button, engaged in the use of such logic! How does this relate to the building of a new jail in Smith county Texas? Well, to find out, read on.

Most people know the ins and outs of creating a new jail, and frankly, for whatever reason, they don’t want one! Even the commissioners know this, and at least one of the chief proponents of the new jail has more in common with the no vote than the yes vote.

It can not have escaped the commissioners attention that the people do not want a new jail until the new methods for lowering incarceration rates have been given a solid chance to work, or that the methods put in place so far, have achieved more than anyone could have dreamed possible! So, why?

What is the reasoning which prompts commissioners to ride headlong into the windmill with jousting poles raised, in spite of the fact that they know it is a windmill and not a giant, in spite of the fact that they are riding the taxpayers horses into this imaginary battle, and committing political suicide for something that they know is wrong? For an answer to that, I have to resort to what my friend brought up about the MAD agreement. I can see no reason that would make any sense to the average person who will have to foot the bill for this foray into fantasy land, so I have abandoned that pursuit in favor of ones more suited to what I now believe to be the mentality of those in charge of the effort.

• They want a jail to keep up with the Jones’s. That is, “Everyone else has a jail, and we want one too!” theory.

• They want a jail to to prove that they can get one. That is, the “We will show you!” theory.

• They want a jail because they have a cousin in the jail building business. That is the “follow the money” theory.

• They want a jail because they think it is fashionable to look “tuff on crime”, the “Incarcarex” theory.

• They want a jail because they plan on filling it. It goes like this:

“Hey Andy, I caught this guy spitting on the sidewalk!” “Great Barn, lock him up, we have plenty of space in this new jail! When your done, see if you kind find anyone sticking gum under the table…”

In conclusion, I am still unable to determine an exact reason, perhaps it is something that can’t be reached through reason.

I intend no malice toward the Andy Griffith Show, and only use the characters as an example since Gilligan’s Island had no related plots.

After browsing around some forums, and looking at comments on news stories, as well as speaking with a few folks around the area, I have come to conclude that the counties hiring of Smith county lawyer Robert Davis may have been the best thing that they could have possibly done…for the opposition! This move has pushed many people who were on the fence off the fence, and onto the side of the no vote! The most common reason stated, is that if officials consider this man to be the best attorney for doing the job, they must be either incompetent, or desperate! Either way, it is enough to nudge a lot of fence sitters off.

Is this guy for real? He seems to be the very caricature of a District Attorney “wanabe”, with bad manners to boot! He is turning voters against the county jail bond proposal faster than truth and logic have been able to do so far! Thank you Mr. Davis!

In the finest traditions of ancient political fear mongering, the county has hired legal counsel, a Smith county lawyer,  apparently doing double duty as a spokes model as well.

Let’s be frank about this. Voting against this jail proposal, or for that matter opposing this proposal, is not about letting criminals out on the street as it is being portrayed! To say that it is, is pure demagoguery. This is even more poignant to me as we look at the recent statements of the new attorney hired to defend commissioners as they try to keep the truth from us. Demagogues were orators hired to frighten people into agreeing with official policies in the ancient world. That pretty much sums up what’s going on here!

Make no mistake about it, this is demagouery at it’s best, or maybe that is at its worst, and it fits the greek definition perfectly, and it is being done with your money and mine!

In a move that strikes everyone as being bizarre, Smith county commissioners are filing suit against the State Attorney Generals office in an attempt to keep the Smith county jail plans a secret.

Their reasons? Ostensibly, to keep the jail details from falling into the hands of criminals who might be planning some future jail break! The facts are a little more complicated.

If, as attorney Ken Good believes,  “A fully completed and detailed architectural drawing submitted to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards before the plan was even made public would demonstrate that Judge Baker and Commissioner Fleming violated the law.” , it would mean that the county commissioners involved had in fact, violated the open meetings act, and would be subject to civil and criminal penalties. This would seem to be the real reason for filling suit against the AG.

“Battle Lines Drawn on Jail Bond Proposal

TYLER — Both sides are squaring off in the debate over a new Smith County Jail. “The “Finally! A Jail Plan We Can Afford” Committee supports the $59.6 million November bond proposal. Supporters and opponents of last fall’s failed $125 million plan teamed up on the new one, which the committee’s Bobby Curtis calls an affordable, no-frills package.”

The problem is, that there is no squaring off in the debate, really, no debate at all, as you will see from the rest of the story:

“But the “What Part of No Don’t You Understand” Committee insists that now is not the time to build a jail, citing such concerns as the state of the economy and objections to how the plan was put together. And now they’re challenging the supporters to a debate — which Curtis is so far declining. The opposition group’s Ken Good says a debate would offer citizens a “vigorous discussion” of the topic. But Curtis says the issues are clear, the county’s under a state mandate to upgrade jail facilities, and he doesn’t know what there is to debate.”

Yes, the county is under a mandate, no, it is not necessary to build a new facility to meet that mandate. One has to wonder if the newly formed committee is afraid that this truth would become common knowledge if the debate was brought into the public arena.

If you would like to see the future of the current Smith county jail proposal, just take a look at the past! We managed to dig up the URL for the last jail proposal support committee, and it will give you a look at the current committees future! This is the current web page for the “Build The Jail Committee” from the 2007 election aftermath. We will title this link:

Back To The Future For Smith County Jail Proposal

We hope that the new committee can come up with something snappy to add to their site after November 6!

Tyler Smith County Jail Bond | Official Arrogance 2008

After the last November election in Smith county, we saw this article: “Smith Voters Send Clear Messages On Jail Proposal” is what the editorial in the Tyler Morning Telegraph said, but the 70 to 30 percent message was apparently not clear enough for the officials who now have a new “jailhouse lite” proposal on the ballot for the next election! The editorial listed three causes for the failure of the last jail bond:

• Price
• Location
• Pay raises

It also touched on what I think is a more probable cause:
“We also believe that voters resented the choice made by Smith County commissioners to limit public dialog.

The message voters received from commissioners, in the format of the town meetings, was “We don’t trust you.” The court’s reasoning behind the format – that naysayers would take up too much time – was flimsy and unconvincing.”

Flimsy and unconvincing? No, just downright arrogant!

In the last November election the naysayers had their say at the voting booth. It was a big horse laugh, and a slap in the face of official arrogance! The message sent back to the commissioners from the naysayers was: “We don’t trust you, either, and we are willing to go to the polling places to prove it!” The naysayers had the final say!

If anything has changed since last Novembers jail bond train wreck, it has been for the worse. Rather than becoming more open and forthright, more deceit, clandestine secrecy, and trickery have been employed!

Well folks, it is time to start looking at what the naysayers say! It is about time for some rethinking. What commissioners should have been looking at is alternatives to a new jail! Not seeing what they could salvage from previous attempts. They should have been asking the questions: “Are the voters right? Do we really need a new jail, or should we look at slowing down the rate of incarceration before we propose to tax the people to penury?”

Some advice to commissioners for the post November sob party:

Stop assuming that we even need a new jail. Start thinking outside the cell. The automatic assumption that because we have a problem with overcrowding, we need to build a new inmate warehouse, is a logical fallacy. If you owned a warehouse, and couldn’t process the goods fast enough, you would probably look at speeding up the process before you started thinking of building a new warehouse. Let’s do the same here.

Ask for public input. The sort of vague, quasi sincere requests for input in the past will not get any real information from the public. It would also be good to allow an anonymous forum for those who might otherwise be too timid to submit suggestions. There is a lot of distrust which apparently has gone unrecognized by county officials.

The last proposal had almost no public input. The proposal for November 2008 had even less! This is seen as arrogance by most people, and people despise arrogance in public officials.