Monday the Johnson County Commissioner's Court passed the new district lines as presented in last week's public hearings. At the conclusion of the agenda item Judge Harmon and Precinct 3 Commissioner, Jerry Stringer, took the opportunity to refute the claims made about the lack of transparency in the redistricting process. Commissioner Stringer pushed any blame, if any were to be had, onto the consultants they hired. The consultants certainly share the blame, but the county has worked with them for months now and could have done a lot more if they really wanted too. The fact is that anyone interested in the redistricting process would have had to comb through every court agenda to know when it would come up. Maybe that's acceptable to them, but if I were sitting on that side it certainly would not have been to me. One certainly has to wonder why desiring greater ease of information for the public makes them so defensive.
Here's how the public could have been involved:
The court met 7 times with regards to redistricting from May 25th when they had what Judge Harmon referred to as a "pre-planning meeting" through September 12th when they passed the new plan. Judge Harmon and Commissioner Stringer feel like that gave plenty of opportunity for everyone to know what was going on. Seven times does sound like a lot of opportunity, doesn't it? How might the public have know about those meetings though? If they went to the county website and looked around for redistricting information prior to August 25th they would have come up empty handed. On August 25th they announced a public hearing to be held September 7th and that was the first time a mention of redistricting was placed on the site outside of the contents of a commissioners court agenda. Between August 25th and the public hearings on September 7th had someone taken an interest after seeing the announcement they would not have been able to get any other information there. Even a trip to the court house would have yielded little to no results. I know, I tried.
Maybe they thought interested parties would just be regular court attendees - people that know when the court regularly meets and show up for most meetings. That too would have left most in the dark since out of the seven meetings that had redistricting on the agenda only two were regularly scheduled meetings. The other five were special called meetings on alternate days and times.
Maybe they thought interested parties were people that visit the county website every day, click into court agendas and watch for newly posted items so they could scroll through and look for items related to redistricting. Is this some kind of "tough love" method of governance where if you make things too easy people won't appreciate it?
Commissioner Stringer is quoted in today's Burleson Star as saying "The times and dates were all published and no one showed up. Or if they did, they never asked to speak. I think the court did a great job considering the restraints we had to work with." Maybe after reading this Commissioner Stringer will know why no one showed up.
A.J.
Here's how the public could have been involved:
The court met 7 times with regards to redistricting from May 25th when they had what Judge Harmon referred to as a "pre-planning meeting" through September 12th when they passed the new plan. Judge Harmon and Commissioner Stringer feel like that gave plenty of opportunity for everyone to know what was going on. Seven times does sound like a lot of opportunity, doesn't it? How might the public have know about those meetings though? If they went to the county website and looked around for redistricting information prior to August 25th they would have come up empty handed. On August 25th they announced a public hearing to be held September 7th and that was the first time a mention of redistricting was placed on the site outside of the contents of a commissioners court agenda. Between August 25th and the public hearings on September 7th had someone taken an interest after seeing the announcement they would not have been able to get any other information there. Even a trip to the court house would have yielded little to no results. I know, I tried.
Maybe they thought interested parties would just be regular court attendees - people that know when the court regularly meets and show up for most meetings. That too would have left most in the dark since out of the seven meetings that had redistricting on the agenda only two were regularly scheduled meetings. The other five were special called meetings on alternate days and times.
Maybe they thought interested parties were people that visit the county website every day, click into court agendas and watch for newly posted items so they could scroll through and look for items related to redistricting. Is this some kind of "tough love" method of governance where if you make things too easy people won't appreciate it?
Commissioner Stringer is quoted in today's Burleson Star as saying "The times and dates were all published and no one showed up. Or if they did, they never asked to speak. I think the court did a great job considering the restraints we had to work with." Maybe after reading this Commissioner Stringer will know why no one showed up.
A.J.
- Wednesday, May 25, 9:00 am, special called meeting, redistricting workshop.
- Thursday, June 2, 9:00 am, special called meeting, committee appointed, redistricting workshop.
- Monday, June 20, 6:00 pm, special called meeting, redistricting presentation.
- Monday, August 22, 9:00 am, regular called meeting, redistricting workshop.
- Tuesday, September 6, 9:00 am, special called meeting, announced redistricting public hearing for next day, passed "drafting redistricting plan".
- Wednesday, September 7, 6:00 pm and 7:15 pm, special called meeting, redistricting public hearings. Vote scheduled, but tabled.
- Monday, September 12, 9:00 am, regular called meeting, redistricting plan passed.
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