July 6, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: Chris Hill and Darrell Hale were absent, so the 13-minute meeting consisted of five public speakers and the lightning-fast passing of the consent agenda. The commissioners spent more time saying the pledge of allegiance and their illegal prayer than they did voting. Two of the speakers asked for accountability for Marvin Scott III. A third announced that she and her book club friends formed the People Against Coerced Shots (PACS) to “educate” about the pressure to get vaccinated. Sadly, the crazy anti-vaxxers are still among us. Joshua Murray requested that the commissioners analyze their vaccine …
Collin County Politics: How We Vote Matters Too
June 28, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: The commissioners continue to try and prevent public speakers who don’t agree with them. They’ve previously charged one citizen with contempt of court and created rules of decorum intended to stifle dissent. This week they put off the public speaking portion by holding a close to two-hour executive session to discuss pending legislation. If the commissioners held their executive session at the end of the meeting like they usually do, it wouldn’t have been a problem. However, by holding it directly prior to public comments, we ended up with 3 public speakers instead of the …
Collin County Politics: Compassion Over Cost
June 23, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: The commissioners didn’t hold a meeting last week. They didn’t explain why. Despite the absence of a meeting, a lot happened. Joshua Murray, a citizen who speaks at every meeting, was charged with contempt on May 24th for “disrupting” the proceedings. Anyone watching the meeting will clearly see that Chris Hill set him up because Hill doesn’t like being called out as an idiot every week (he should be used to it by now). As a result of the trumped-up charge, Mr. Murray spent an entire night in jail. This is absolutely unacceptable. Not only …
Collin County Politics: We Need New Commissioners
June 15, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: The court returned to its pre-pandemic layout including having the speaker’s stand close to the front. While Collin County has one of the highest rates of vaccinations in Texas and the CDC rates our level of risk low, totally throwing caution to the wind seems unwise. Then again, our commissioners aren’t wise in general, so no surprise there. After no discussion whatsoever, they unanimously passed the Rules for Decorum. Now they can shorten or lengthen the time allocated for each speaker, mandate “proper attire” (which they get to define), and hold in contempt individuals who …
Collin County Politics: The Battle for Democracy Starts at Home
June 8, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: Although there wasn’t a meeting last week, Chris Hill (or rather, his staff) has been hard at work drafting a Court Order for establishing Rules and Decorum of the Commissioners Court meetings to be voted on during the June 7th meeting. The Court Order allows them to vote on shortening people’s speaking time, hold people in contempt of court for “disruptions,” and create a dress code that refuses to allow hats. One wonders what they’ll do about religious-based head coverings. It shouldn’t escape our attention that this has only been put together AFTER the public …
Collin County Politics: Democracy is Fragile
June 1, 2021 Allen City Council: The run-off election for Allen City Council continues to be incredibly ugly. The Dave contingent people are at the polls yelling and cussing at those voters not supporting their Trump-like candidate. They don’t even bother to moderate their hateful approach when children are around. Allen’s always been a town firmly committed to families, so it’s mystifying and tragic to see how far some of its’ citizens have fallen from the moral excellence they claim to have. Commissioner’s Court: Speaking of moral turpitude, the Commissioner’s Court continues to be a horror show. The regular meeting …
Collin County Politics: Let’s Lead Instead of Settle
May 24, 2021 Allen City Council: In the upcoming run-off election for Allen City Council, the residents of Allen have a choice to make. They must decide whether they’re going to re-elect a true public servant leader (Lauren Doherty) or scrape the bottom of the barrel. Although the race is supposed to be non-partisan, in some ways it’s a microcosm for what’s happening between the two parties at the national level. Will we proudly elect solid leaders with good ideas (the Democrats) or will we settle for those with challenging pasts who have nothing to bring to the table (the …
Collin County Politics: Transparency is Key
May 18, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: The meeting last week was abruptly canceled with no explanation given on the official website. When asked about this (via Facebook), Darrell Hale explained that it was because there weren’t enough commissioners present to have a quorum. So their absences are now resulting in canceled meetings. Good to know. Another problem is their lack of transparency. Why not just give the reason for canceling the meeting on the website? Similarly, why do the commissioners not have a “working” meeting like most other governmental entities? Hale explained that they do all their discussions in the weekly …
Collin County Politics: Protest is American
May 10, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: The public comments continue to be gold. The first speaker commented on the double standard of police behavior. During a recent protest for justice for Marvin Scott III, a huge white man named David Godber (you’d be excused for thinking he should be called Goober) threatened and assaulted some of the protesters. He was aggressive with a police officer, swatted a phone out of one woman’s hand, and swatted at another. He cocked his fist like he was going to hit someone and, to top it all off, was concealed carrying (of course he was). …
Collin County Politics: Elections Matter
May 4, 2021 Commissioner’s Court: This week was Darrell Hale’s turn to miss. Individual commissioners are absent so often that having a full-functioning court is more the exception than the rule. Must be nice to be a politician! Perhaps Hale was in hiding because he was embarrassed by his “self-immunization” comment although I doubt he has the capacity for shame. He should be hiding from that stupid comment because it’s downright dangerous. According to local epidemiologist, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, India’s Covid surge is demonstrating just how inadequate “natural immunity” is. Populations that have high “natural” immunity are getting re-infected, so …