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The death of the mouse tree in Richardson

The Mouse Tree after storms came through Richardson.

The Mouse Tree after storms came through Richardson.(Photo by William J. 'Bill' McCalpin)

There is a creek in northwest Richardson that is so puny that it doesn’t even have a name. The creek runs about 500 yards from the Reservation’s Mimosa Park to the west branch of Cottonwood Creek. Just a few feet from where the creek crosses under North Cheyenne Drive, a tree stood anonymous and nearly invisible for 30 years. Rooted in the side bank of the creek, the tree grew first sideways, then clawed its way up to the sky. Pushing and shoving, the tree grew this way and that, so that it was gnarled and twisted, with nary a straight line to be found. It had no single leader, but multiple stems reaching upwards as they dodged and weaved through the taller, older trees that predated it.

Even for a hackberry, the tree was hideous.

Not only was the tree unpleasant to the eye, but it was covered top to bottom with sticker vine, a vine rife with thorns that was able to grow straight out of the undergrowth upward of six feet, twisting and turning and looking for a branch or trunk to latch on to. Because the hackberry was stunted, it became the favorite target of sticker vines, and for many years, the tree resembled nothing so much as a Halloween set decoration. From time to time, its own leaves were outnumbered by the leaves of the vines, and the vines covered the tree with a ghoul-like shroud.

Scionnach was a teenaged cat when he came to us. He had a natural ability to take down prey like mice and birds and lizards even though he lived inside 23 and a half hours a day. He kept the attic clear of rodents – important when you live on two creeks and they always find a way in – and when allowed outside under our watchful eyes, he stunned us with his ability to find prey that really should have been better adapted to the outdoors than he.

Cats are not human beings; they have no sense of the “ugly” that we so easily label people and animals and plants with. One day, Scionnach caught a mouse in the side yard. The mouse had come down a certain particular ugly hackberry tree, and Scionnach made an easy and happy score. From then on, when Scionnach was allowed outside, he would go to that tree and sit in its shadow, waiting for the tree to produce another gift for him.

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In Richardson, too many dangers make outside, unsupervised play ‘careless’

Photo by William J. 'Bill' McCalpin

On Sunday, a guest column appeared in The Dallas Morning News written by an Austin-based mother bemoaning that she had been called to task for letting her child play outside. Here is a counterpoint to that article, written on this subject with all the seriousness her misdemeanor deserves …

I don’t know about you, but I spent Sunday afternoon in my Richardson neighborhood watching felonies take place outside my living room windows. Yes, right out there in the street in front of my home, about 5 p.m. on an overcast, early fall day in late September, in front of God and everyone, children were riding their bikes alone and in small groups – without adult supervision.

And these are hardly the only children who are in peril in our neighborhood. We live on two creeks — one along the back of the lot and the other that runs the length of one side. The two creeks meet in the back of our oversized lot, where there is an untamed area full of trees and brush where wild animals lurk to fight and hunt and howl in the dark.

Across the side creek, there is a stand of bamboo. All summer long, neighborhood children come down to play in the bamboo thicket, out of the sight of any adult supervision. Down in the thicket, they are exposed daily to the threat of poison ivy and stinging insects.

Other children swing on a rope that an irresponsible neighbor tied 20 feet in the air on a tree branch in the back of his lot so that the kids can swing across the back creek from his side to our side. A fall would land them in a foot of water; no, not clean city water but the water that has fallen on the streets and run down the gutters and into the storm sewers. Yes, sewers. The water in the creek is undoubtedly full of germs and insects and wild animals doing their business in the water.

And still other children — innocent pre-teen girls whose families live around us — yell unashamedly across the creek to check to see where their friends are. When they find each other, one girl has the temerity to tell her friend to come across the creek to her house. Yes, crossing the creek with its few inches of water, crawling with minnows and crawfish and rocks and algae and the occasional spot of mud. Why, if a girl fell, she would be in water up to her ankle, trapped in the wild at least 100 feet from her back door.

Even as I write about these horrible events in the evening’s twilight, a 7- or 8-year-old boy scoots by alone on his skateboard, riding in the street where, no doubt, at any moment, a crazed motorist will go out of his way to send the child to the ER or worse. Or what about the young pre-teen blond girl who often rides her bike alone in front of our house? Why, one day, when there was a loose dog in the neighborhood and the dog’s owner was frantically trying to catch it, I and this young girl corralled the dog and handed it back. This young girl could have been mauled by that 10-pound wet mop of fur! Worse, she spoke to me, a complete stranger, a total contravention of any safety rule, and came into my front yard to help catch the dangerous animal. Has she never heard of the creepy Boo Radley and the threat he presents?

Oh, no, of course not: To Kill a Mockingbird has been banned from her school curriculum. Well, perhaps her teachers can tell her about the dangers of strangers next door without exposing the children to that filthy, trashy novel full of racial slurs, profanity, and dialogue about rape.

Our neighborhood is full of dangers: foxes and coyotes and bobcats, owls and hawks and snakes, wasps and bees and hornets. Our neighborhood has poison ivy and vines with thorns and bois d’arc trees that can put a sharp point right through your hand. Worst of all, our neighborhood is full of pedestrians, walking on the sidewalks and jogging down the streets. These adults are often total strangers, living two or even three blocks away, yet they are permitted to run wild in and among the groups of children who have been allowed outside by their irresponsible parents.

And cancer, what about cancer? Children who are outside are exposed to the sun. Even in this neighborhood with many large trees overhanging the sidewalks, children are bombarded with solar radiation, the least little bit of which is known to cause hideous skin cancer. Isn’t it far better for our children to get their vitamin D from mass-produced pills than from that dangerous orb in the sky?

This is not to mention the air that our children must breathe when out of doors. Yes, “fresh” air is surely a misnomer. How can we allow our children to run and play in the same air where cars emit noxious gases, fireplaces belch smoke and poisons, and in which birds and animals perform the most offensive bodily functions?

Why are there so many parents in this neighborhood who are so careless about their children’s safety? There are dangers everywhere the moment you step outside. It is surely far safer to keep your children indoors on a sofa in front of the television or a computer screen where they can learn about the perils of the modern world without actually being in harm’s way.

Where are the police? Where are the media to report on this crime wave? Where are the specialists who should be shrieking that we as a civilized society can’t possibly allow our children outside alone?

Who will save our children?

Bill McCalpin is president of the Friends of the Richardson Library. He also serves on the city’s library board and is the civic chair for the Reservation Neighborhood Association. He has an interest in writing on government and citizen participation in the city.

Fifth in a Series: How Richardson’s 2012 charter election introduced errors

Fifth in a series on the Richardson City Charter – where it came from, what it is trying to achieve, how it can be changed and why it needs review in the first place.

Richardson charter review commission

Richardson charter review commission(City of Richardson)

In this article, we will look at the effects of the recent change to the Richardson city charter. The apparent purpose of the charter change in 2012 was a yes/no vote on whether to elect the mayor directly by the people. Richardson, for the last 56 years, had elected the mayor from the council, which is permitted in the state of Texas. However, the language on the ballot came directly from a petition, and the language on the petition was not a yes/no vote, but changes to 12 different sections of the charter. Unfortunately, these changes did not seem to account for the unusual way that Richardson’s charter used some critical terminology. The result is a series of contradictions and ambiguities that were introduced into the charter by the voters in 2012.

All section numbers are from the current city charter; the charter can be seen here.

City charters tend to resemble each other a lot. This is no surprise, as the initial charter for a home rule city is usually not developed from scratch, but is borrowed from the existing charters of neighboring cities. After all, if the charter works for city A, why not start with it for city B, even if we make some changes to it?

If you look at the charters of our neighboring cities, one thing will jump out at you — many of them include a series of explicit definitions of terminology. For example, in Section 2.01 in Addison’s charter, we see:

Section 2.01. Number.

The legislative and governing body of the Town shall be a City Council which shall be composed of a mayor and six (6) council members. When used in this Charter, the term “Council” shall mean the City Council, and the phrase “member of the Council” and the phrase “member of the City Council” shall mean and include the Mayor or any council member.

And if you look at other charters in the area, you will see that all of them use the words “member” and “council member” in the same way:

• Member – refers to all elected officials on the council
• Council member (also written “councilmember”) – refers to all elected officials on the council except the mayor

Why does this matter? Because of the way that charters talk about how action is taken by the council. In Carrollton, for example, there are explicitly seven council members and the mayor.

Sec. 2.01. Number, selection, term.

The council shall consist of a mayor and seven (7) council members elected from the city in the manner provided in Article VII…

Later, in section 2.05, the mayor is explicitly denied the power to vote on actions, except in the case of a tie. And furthermore, section 2.14 restates this policy by saying:

“…the affirmative vote of four or more council members [emphasis mine] shall be necessary to take any action in the name of the city or to adopt or repeal any ordinance or resolution.”

You see? Only the votes of council members are counted, not the mayor’s.

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Friends of the Richardson Library sponsoring free ‘little libraries’

Little Free Library

A Little Free Library in Easthampton, Mass.(John Phelan )

Disclosure: The author is president of the Friends of the Richardson Library.

You have perhaps heard of the Little Free Library®. LittleFreeLibrary.org is a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization that builds “little free libraries” and coordinates their installation, promotion, and use.

Little Free Libraries (or LFLs as I like to call them, for brevity’s sake) are small structures typically in a residential front yard or in a common spot in a homeowners association or even in the lobby of an apartment building, in which people place and borrow books for free. The motto is “take a book, return a book”. Walkers in a neighborhood or parents with small children pass by the structure to leave a book, and then stop to see what their neighbors have left for them.

Friends of the Richardson Library (FOL) have been looking for ways to further promote the Richardson Public Library. When the organization became aware of the Little Free Library movement (so to speak, since it is often self-directed on the local level), the FOL decided to go one step further. While neighborhood associations often provide the work to build, install, and maintain these LFLs, the cost of building a nice-looking, weather-tight LFL – or buying it from a group such as LittleFreeLibrary.org – can delay the project for months or years.

So on Aug. 5, the Friends of the Richardson Library announced a sponsorship program, in which the FOL would provide – at no expense to the neighborhood – a kit from LittleFreeLibrary.org to build a suitable structure to hold books and would also populate that structure with an initial set of books.

The primary conditions are that the neighborhood would assemble, install, and maintain the LFL after receiving the kit. The intention is that the neighborhood would involve both parents and children in the process of building the LFL, in order to especially have the kids “buy in” to the structure and the books inside.

These FOL sponsorships are currently limited to one per neighborhood, in order to spread them out across the city of Richardson.

The city considers these LFLs to be “unattached structures” on a residential lot, and so long as their roof area is less than 40 square feet (as these LFLs are) and are sited at least 10 feet from a property line, the city does not regulate them. Indeed, since the city encourages strong neighborhoods, the city is informally delighted with yet another program that encourages neighbor to get to know neighbor.

Of course, the LFLs do have to comply with any requirements for not only city codes but also HOA regulations, if the LFL is placed inside the confines of a mandatory homeowners association.

For additional information on the Little Free Library concept, visit www.littlefreelibrary.org . For additional information on the Friends of the Richardson Library Little Free Library sponsorship program as well as how to apply, visit www.richardsonfol.org/Little-Free-Library or contact LFLsponsorship@richardsonfol.org.

My secret shame: My cats are vegans

I walk my cats. Well, I actually go out in the backyard and walk around with them as they investigate Mother Nature. I do this because we don’t have a fenced yard here in Richardson, and coyotes have been known to saunter through the yard as if they owned the place.

I don’t mind; it gives me a chance to tend to do maintenance in the vegetable garden or on the various watering devices or even just take photographs. Besides, I could always hope that the cats might get some exercise by spotting and chasing a rabbit. No, based on what I’ve seen, the rabbit would be in no danger from the “girls”, but it would be a good thing if they got off their thrones occasionally and actually ran around some.

fierce weed-eating bunny

fierce weed-eating bunny(William J. 'Bill' McCalpin)

When the bunnies appear in the yard, we point them out to the cats. This is, of course, a complete waste of time, as cats stare at your finger and not at what you’re pointing at. If there is any difference between cats and dogs, it’s this: dogs want to see what you’re looking at, and cats wonder why you’re waving your finger in the air like that.

We have even resorted to picking the cats up and turning them around until they’re facing the rabbit … but if the rabbit doesn’t move, the cats can’t see them anyway. While cats are excellent at seeing small bits of motion, they are lousy at pattern recognition. A rabbit or squirrel or bird that is motionless is simply invisible to them.

Or so I had always thought. But while making brief video clips of the cats in the backyard yesterday, I realized that their favorite activity is an odd one: eating grass.

Auricula being offered a lima bean pod

Auricula being offered a lima bean pod(William J. 'Bill' McCalpin)

Yes, the little beggars go right outside to the path to the vegetable garden, turn to the side, and start munching on the tall blades of grass that the mower always seems to miss along the path. This morning, the tabby Auricula asked to go out (she sits by the back door, staring at it and making very loud telepathic thoughts). When I let her out, she walked straight down the path to a stand of Bermuda grass by the edge of the vegetable beds. Nom nom nom. Then she walked backed to where I was sitting on the bench and threw up.

Having completed her primary task, she walked back in the other direction on the path to the back door, and thought loud telepathic thoughts to be let back in.

That’s when it dawned on me that she wanted to go outside for the sole purpose of eating grass, as if she were an herbivore with odd dentition.

Nyctelia on the prowl for fresh grass

Nyctelia on the prowl for fresh grass(William J. 'Bill' McCalpin)

Before I let in Auricula, I glanced over at Nyctelia, nearly all black with just white paws and a seeming milk dribble running down her chin. She was on the low brick wall surrounding the patio, leaning waaaaaay over – to eat grass.

When I got them back inside, I checked their cat food. They eat only the dried pellets from a major vendor. I looked at the ingredients – things like chicken sweepings … stuff swept up off the floor after the chickens have gone out for the day. “Meat” didn’t seem to be an ingredient.

Looking at the ingredients’ list reminded me of what modern martinis have evolved into: There is so little vermouth in a modern martini (i.e., “very dry”) that it’s sufficient to just open a bottle of vermouth and wave it around in the same room where your gin awaits in a glass. Cat food appears to have been made in a facility through which animals may have passed through, with the hope, I guess, that some of the “meatiness” would somehow be absorbed from the air.

Then I had a horrible thought. Not long ago, a mouse had gotten into the house (living on two creeks, this is not unusual). Nyctelia, the younger of the girls, happily chased the mouse from room to room, who was able to stay ahead of her by going under the doors. I finally found Nyctelia and the mouse in the living room. The mouse was panting desperately trying to catch its breath … and Nyctelia was sitting next to it, patiently waiting for it to finish so that they could resume their game. I looked at Nyctelia, Nyctelia looked at me, and the mouse, restored, scrammed for it with Nyctelia in hot pursuit.
There was not a mark on that mouse.

Then I remembered that last time I saw Nyctelia with a dead rat. She noisily came through the cat door that goes into the attic, walked along the book case, jumped down my chair, and laid the corpse at my feet. I praised her at the time for being a mighty huntress, but now the terrible truth was dawning on me: There was not a mark on that rat’s body. Nyctelia didn’t hunt and kill that rat; she just picked up the body when the rat died laughing upon hearing that she was a vegan.

From time to time, we would offer the girls small amounts of shredded chicken or pork or tuna from our dinner. The usual response would be total disdain – apparently it wasn’t dried pellets so it couldn’t be cat food. We never bothered to hide our food from the girls either on the table or on the counter – they never showed any interest in what we ate.

Now, our late boy kitty, Scionnach, would go outside on these walks, and within five minutes – no kidding – he would have a bird or mouse or at the very least a lizard. It doesn’t say much for nature when a cat that is inside for 23.5 hours a day can catch a wild bird or rodent in just minutes. One would have thought that the wild life would have sat on branches on various trees and ridiculed Scionnach for being an indoor momma’s boy, but, no, as it turns out, Scionnach loved meat so much that it took him literally only minutes to bring some home. Nobody was laughing when Scionnach was in the backyard.

And don’t let me forget my first boy kitty, Pywacket. He was so desperate for animal protein that once while we were gone on errands, he leapt up on the counter where there was a frozen turkey thawing – still in its heavy plastic bag. Pywacket chewed through the plastic wrapping and into the still-frozen breast meat. Thank God I never taught him how to use the microwave.

But the girls…eating grass. I don’t care what they say about cats eating grass because they feel better when they throw up to remove hairballs – there are no hairballs in their spit-up, only blades of grass. Not meat or lizard parts or even 70% lean ground beef. Nope. Only chlorophyll-based life forms.

Now I know why the Official Spousal Unit never keeps any live plants in the house – it would be like Lucille Ball on her first day of work at the candy factory.

Lord have mercy. My cats are vegans.

But I have a plan. Auricula has a weakness for vanilla ice cream. Yes, when I have one of my dessert treats – vanilla ice cream in a chocolate coating on a stick – she comes and sits on the floor in front of me, staring at me and licking her lips. Well, if she had any lips. But she’s busy staring and licking, and there is no doubt what her telepathic messages are saying.

So when I finish eating all the chocolate coating and most of the ice cream, I bend over and offer the stick with its remaining smears of vanilla to Auricula. If the mood is right, she comes over and licks the stick dry. Aha! I’m converting Auricula from a vegan to a lacto-vegetarian!

Hmmmn, I wonder if Nyctelia would be interested in the water from a can of tuna fish?

Fourth in a Series: Specific examples of items to be reviewed in Richardson’s charter

Fourth in a series on the Richardson City Charter – where it came from, what it is trying to achieve, how it can be changed, and why it needs review in the first place.

Richardson Charter slide

Charter Review Process at recent City Council worksession(City of Richardson)

In this article, we will briefly look at a number of items that deserve some review in Richardson’s city charter. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, nor does inclusion on this list imply that the item needs to be modified. These items will help provide clear examples of why some items in the charter need to be reviewed.

All section numbers are from the current city charter; the charter can be seen here.

1.03, 13.03, and 14.07 – These sections should be reviewed, because newspapers are no longer the sole standard method of publishing notices. Note that state law already makes references to municipal websites. But should we stop there? Email? Social media?

2.03, 12.17, and all of Article 18 – State law on eminent domain was updated in 2009; this means that these sections should be reviewed to ensure that there is no conflict in the charter with current state law.

3.08 – According to the charter, there must be at least two “regular meetings” a month. What does “regular” mean? For many years, the council has had two types of meetings: council meetings and work sessions. Are “work sessions” considered “regular meetings”? Note that there are usually no formal votes during a work session, but there could be. Since the council has a work session nearly every Monday, if the work sessions are “regular meetings”, then the council has no problem reaching two regular meetings a month, but if not …

3.10 – “…that citizens of the city shall have a reasonable opportunity to be heard at any such meeting, in regard to any matter there considered.” This could be read as “any matter considered at a given meeting” (i.e., on the agenda that day). However, this is not how meetings are actually conducted – the current practice is to allow a citizen to speak on any subject at all, whether or not it is on the current meeting’s agenda.

4.01 – The charter lists the original (or at least, quite old) boundaries of the four council districts. Since the boundaries can now be changed by ordinance, not charter amendment, there is no point in having these now out-of-date boundaries listed here.

4.05 and 5.02 – Federal law has changed in terms of permissible election dates, which is affecting the uniform election dates set by the state. Although municipal elections in odd years are probably not affected, special elections such as recall elections in even-numbered years can be affected.

6.01 – Since the city manager is hired and fired at will, the discussion of a maximum of two years for a contract doesn’t really make sense. Indeed, this issue confused a number of Richardson residents a few years ago, when they thought that the previous city manager’s bonus plan spanning five or so years must have violated the charter. The reference to a contract should probably be deleted.

9.01 – The charter lists certain boards and commissions that the city must have. However, other boards and commissions can be and have been created by ordinance. Do we have the right boards and commissions listed in the charter? Should any of them be in the charter?

9.04 – The understanding of public meetings has evolved dramatically over the years. The Texas attorneys general have consistently ruled that “advisory” boards meetings are not subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act. For example, the library board, which has no decision-making power or spending power, is an advisory board under the Act. Our current charter suggests that all boards and commissions should be run as if all meetings are subject to the Open Meetings Act, above and beyond what current State law calls for.

9.06 – In the same vein, this section calls for every board or commission member to be required to vote on every motion on the agenda. Is this requirement sensible even for the advisory boards, where members have been required to vote on motions that they couldn’t have any previous knowledge of (e.g., approving the minutes of a meeting that they did not attend)?

9.10 – Is it appropriate to require that restraining orders be filed only in Dallas County?

14.03 – The charter uses the term “qualified” voters, but the state uses the term “registered” voters. Are these terms the same? What about voters “in suspense” (pending deletion, but not deleted yet)? Does “qualified” refer to “eligible” voters? Voters who have registered but who have not had 30 days pass from the registration?

16.05 – This section grants the city all the powers and authority granted to any city of more than 5,000 inhabitants. However, while nearly all cities in Texas of more than 5,000 inhabitants are home rule cities – governed by one set of rules – a few are general law cities which are governed by another set of rules. Which type of city do we mean?

19.01 and 19.02 – While these sections prohibit any sale of debt by the city, the state’s Certificate of Obligation Act of 1971 effectively overrode this prohibition in every municipal charter statewide. These sections should be updated to prevent confusion.

These are not all the sections in the charter that need review, but this list should serve as a good set of examples of how terms and language can change over time, and need to be reviewed for possible clarification.

In the next article, we will look at a specific set of problems with the charter that were introduced during the last charter election, when a series of poorly thought-out changes were placed into the charter by popular vote.

Get used to a new watering schedule in Richardson starting Saturday

New Richardson watering schedule

Richardson watering schedule as of July 19th(CIty of Richardson)

The city revealed a modification to the current Stage 3 watering schedule Monday night. Instead of watering twice a month, the schedule — effective July 19 — will be every other week, which, as you can see, is slightly more often.

There will be an adjustment to the calendar to make the transition from the current twice-a-month to every other week. This means that the Saturday people (even-numbered addresses) will be able to water not only this Saturday (July 19) but also next Saturday (July 26), while the Sunday people will be able to water on Sunday July 20 and on Sunday July 27. Please see the attached schedule.

As of July 27, we will shift to a different way of watering. In the past, most of the time the Saturday and Sunday waterings took place on the same weekend. However, after July 27, watering will take place every other week, with watering on Sunday at the beginning of the week, and watering on Saturday at the end of the week. The following week, there will be no watering at all. This means that every watering day in the city is separated by at least five days from the previous one.

The city will start a concentrated push to get the word out to people. You can see the latest information at any time at the city’s website.

Remember that this new schedule goes into effect this Saturday (when we would have normally been allowed to water anyway), but the way the watering days are computed is changing … so consult the calendar. It’s not the “first and third Saturday/Sunday” anymore.

Teen volunteer surprised with Friends of the Richardson Public Library scholarship

Ms. Christine Kim and her family accept the 2014 FOL Dot McCalpin scholarship award

Christine Kim and her family accept the Friends of the Richardson Public Library 2014 Dot McCalpin Scholarship award(the City of Richardson)

The Friends of the Richardson Public Library publicly presented a $2,000 scholarship to the most qualified teen volunteer at the Richardson Library in 2014 at a City Council work session on June 2. The scholarship is named for the late Dot McCalpin, a civic leader in Richardson, former president of the Friends, and consummate volunteer.

And, yes, she was my mother.

In a tradition for the past several years, the Friends of the Richardson Public Library made the presentation during the Visitors Section of the work session, with plenty of photographs of the recipient with the Friends Board, her family, the McCalpin family, and the council.

Christine Kim was chosen from a fine field of qualified candidates, all of whom had volunteered at the library before heading off to college. But she and her family really didn’t know what to expect when they arrived at the council’s work session. She was introduced to council members, who applauded her work and achievement.

As Kim said to me that evening, a little in awe, “I didn’t realize that (the scholarship) was such a big deal.”

It’s a big deal because of the emphasis on volunteerism in the city of Richardson. Dozens of volunteers at the Friends of the Library raise enough money to have contributed $27,000 to the library in 2013-2014. Some 1,400 volunteers make the annual Wildflower! Festival possible. Volunteers permeate the Eisemann Center, the Symphony, the police department in crime watch and Volunteers in Patrol, the Rotary clubs, the Kiwanis clubs, Altrusa, the Richardson Woman’s Club, the Y, the Corporate Challenge, the Special Olympics, NETWORK of Community Ministries Inc. (NETWORK), and countless other groups in Richardson.

People in Richardson don’t volunteer in order to be recognized; they volunteer because the job needs to be done. Yes, many volunteers have fun while helping other people, but it isn’t “fun” that keeps them coming back day after day to a position that is often real work. It’s a sense of duty to the community that infuses their work, the sense that this community and this city function because volunteers are willing to do what needs to be done.

And just occasionally, we can give a volunteer the thanks that she or he deserves. Congratulations to Kim and the previous FOL Dot McCalpin Scholarship winners. We look forward to great things from you!

Third in a series: The history of charter review in Richardson

Third in a series on the Richardson City Charter – where it came from, what it is trying to achieve, how it can be changed, and why it needs review in the first place.

Richardson Charter slide

Charter Review Process at recent City Council worksession(City of Richardson)

In a previous article in this series, we read some good reasons why a periodic review of the charter is a good idea – to update obsolete or redundant or just plain confusing language. In this post, we will look at the history of Richardson’s charter review and its implications.

In 1956, the original home rule charter for the city of Richardson was adopted. At the same time, there was the expressed desire to do charter “review” every five years. Note that this was not “revision”, but review to update any language as necessary.

Section 22.03 of the Richardson City Charter discusses the three ways to amend the charter:

(a) By action of the city council submitting a proposed amendment to the voters for approval; or
(b) By report of a Charter Commission created by ordinance; or
(c) By the voters, consistent with state law. Proposal of an amendment by the voters of the city shall be by petition containing the full text of the proposed amendment and shall be governed by state law. There shall be no limitation as to the subject matter.

Indeed, in 1961, five years after the initial adoption of the charter, a Charter Review Committee was formed. The committee “recognized shortcomings in the charter but recommended no change” according to documents held by the city secretary’s office.

This yields important lesson No. 1:

A Charter Review Commission doesn’t necessarily result in a charter election. The Commission can judge (and the Council agree) that the proposed changes are not worth the expense of an election.

Again, in 1966, there was another Charter Review Committee, and for the second time, the committee “recognized shortcomings in the charter but recommended no change” according to the same documents at the city secretary’s office.

In 1973 to 1976, the Charter Review Committee developed a new charter. This proposed charter was not only much shorter than the original charter (because between 1956 and 1976, state law had expanded greatly, making the enumeration of many items in a city’s charter not necessary), but was also renumbered, partially to mirror a Model City Charter from the National Municipal League (now the National Civic League). The Model City Charter, now in its eighth edition, is still available for purchase from the League.

However, the council chose in 1976 not to send this new charter to a public vote.
Hence, we have important lesson No. 2:

Just because the Charter Review Commission actually recommends a change, doesn’t mean that the Council has to accept the recommendations or forward them to the public for a vote.

Finally, by 1987, a new Charter Review Commission was formed. This commission met over a 14-month period in dozens of public meetings (usually weekly) and created a completely new charter that was more than 50 percent smaller than the previous one, due to the amount of now redundant language that was in the original charter.

This new charter was sent to the council, which placed the charter on the ballot for an up-and-down vote in January 1989. The new charter was overwhelmingly passed by Richardson voters.

Hence we have important lesson No. 3:

Putting off Charter review results in massive changes that are the result of a great deal of work, and which may or may not be the cause of dissension among the public.

In the case of the 1988 Charter Review Commission, there was quite a bit of discussion related to structural changes to the city governance, such as changing how the mayor was elected or the concept of districts and how council members are elected. Eventually, rather than risk being sidetracked by discussions of structural changes, members of the Charter Review Commission formally decided that they were the Charter “Review” Commission, not the Charter “Revision” Commission (their words), and they dropped consideration of any structural changes in governance. In any event, while some members of the public did suggest some structural changes, there did not seem to be any great demand for such, and therefore the commission decided to proceed on what it perceived as its original mission of reviewing the charter for obsolete or confusing language.

Since 1989, however, there have been no Charter Review Commissions appointed by the council. While there were charter amendments in 2007 and 2012, these were initiated directly by the council and by public petition, respectively, as permitted by Section 22.03 of the Charter.

So, to repeat, the history of Richardson Charter Review gives us three lessons:

• 1. A Charter Review Commission might not find enough of a problem to recommend a charter election.

• 2. The council has final say on what is sent to the voters, so even if the commission thinks that changes are warranted, the council still doesn’t have to call a charter election.

• 3. Putting off charter review – originally slated for every five years – sharply increases the amount of work for the review and also helps cause confusion between “review” and “revision”. Properly done, timely charter review reduces voter confusion and costly lawsuits.

Next time: What are some of the things in the current charter that might need review?

Second in a series: Charter review vs. revision and why review is occasionally needed

Second in a series on the Richardson City Charter – where it came from, what it is trying to achieve, how it can be changed, and why it needs review in the first place.

Richardson Charter slide

Charter Review Process at recent City Council worksession(City of Richardson)

Richardson adopted its original charter in 1956. At this point, the residents of Richardson defined their city government, hired a city manager and got on with their lives.

However, the charters of home-rule municipalities are subject to limits both by the state of Texas and the courts (state and federal). This means that over time, forces external to the city can encourage or even require that changes be made to the charter, to avoid confusion if nothing else.

Note that I will use “review” differently from “revision”. “Review” means to examine the language of the charter to see if any of its content has become obsolete, redundant, or confusing. “Revision” means to make structural changes to the city government as embodied by the charter. Indeed, this is exactly how the Richardson Charter Review Commission in 1988 used this same terminology.

When Richardson adopted its charter, the state did not have much legislation on the books relating to home-rule cities, other than to allow them. Over time, however, the state added a great deal of legislation relating to them. In many cases, this legislation merely duplicated what many cities already had in their charters, so, at first, any confusion would be minimal. But if the state legislation and the charters were to diverge over time, the residents would rightly become confused over how and when the charter was to be ignored in favor of the state (or vice versa).

Indeed, by the late 1980s, the state had passed so much legislation relating to home-rule cities that Richardson’s 1988 Charter Review Commission actually deleted just over half of the original charter, because it was now redundant.

Yet even after that wholesale rewrite, items that weren’t confusing then have become confusing now.

For example, the original charter said

“All meetings of the Council and committees thereof shall be open to the public and rules of the Council shall provide that citizens of the City shall have a reasonable opportunity to be heard at any such meetings, in regard to any matter there considered…“

You might be forgiven for thinking that closed meetings or meetings in “executive session” would be outlawed …but that was not the understanding in Richardson or in dozens of other home-rule cities that had the identical language at that time. This was because most cities had preceding articles in their charters that expressly stated that these cities had all the powers allowed to any home-rule city by state statutes. Because closed meetings were (and are) allowed by state law, most cities – not just Richardson – felt that the closed-meeting language in their charters was not meant to be interpreted literally.

Until 1973, that is, when the Texas Open Meetings Act was overhauled and the language changed to:

“This chapter does not authorize a governmental body to close a meeting that a charter of the governmental body:
(1) prohibits from being closed; or
(2) requires to be open.”

(See 551.004 of the Texas Government Code)

Yes, 17 years after Richardson adopted its charter, the Legislature — accidentally or deliberately — altered the common understanding of the wording in the charter.

Had the 1988 Charter Review Commission thought about this, they could have changed the language to what it is today:

“All meetings of the city council and all committees thereof shall be open to the public except as otherwise permitted by state law…”

(Section 3.10 of the Richardson City Charter )

This would have not only avoided a hurriedly-held election in 2007 to alter the language of the charter, but would have also avoided a lawsuit against the city that took years to resolve.

A similar situation exists with the selling of debt. Section 19.02 of the Richardson City Charter states clearly:

“Any proposition to issue new or additional bonds, payable from the ad valorem taxes as authorized herein, shall be first submitted to a vote of the qualified voters of the City of Richardson at an election to be held for that purpose.”

However, just as clearly, the city has been selling one type of debt – called “Certificates of Obligation” – for years without a vote by the people. Why? Because the state legalized the issuance of Certificates of Obligation by cities in 1971, and explicitly stated that the cities could legally do this, no matter what their charters said. (See The Certificate of Obligation Act.)

In 2010, a Richardson resident accused the council of breaking the law by selling debt without voter approval and asked that the members resign. Again, this very unfortunate situation could have been avoided if the Charter Review Commission in 1988 had noticed the apparent conflict and reworded the charter that was subsequently approved in 1989. As it is, the Richardson charter today still forbids the city from selling debt without voter consent, and state law still overrides that.

It is obvious, then, that it is in the best interests of the city and its residents that the charter be reviewed on a periodic basis to ensure that sections of the charter have not become obsolete, contrary to state law or court rulings, or simply confusing to the public.

Next, we’ll look at the history of reviews of the Richardson City Charter.