We Need Solutions, Not Political Hackery: A Response to the Chamber-inspired Fracking Mailing
If you voted in any election in the last four years, chances are you received one of these in your mailbox on Saturday. On August 21, the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board approved a resolution opposing the upcoming ballot initiative aimed at banning fracking in the city limits of Denton. Relying on an inaccurate and intentionally misleading industry-funded economic impact study, the Chamber choose to submit itself to the desires of out-of-town oil and gas lobbyists. Their apparently unreflected upon position is now being used as a piece of political hackery, resulting in division among their own membership and the citizenry at large.
Even worse, the industry lobbyists who the Chamber has willingly submitted to are already amassing teams of lawyers to unleash lawsuit upon lawsuit should the city of Denton do anything – either in the ballot box or in the council chambers – that they find cutting into their bottom line. They’ve been explicit – they are ready to make an example of Denton, even if that means attempting economic decimation through endless lawsuits. If this were the movie Braveheart, the industry is King Longshanks, the Denton citizens are the Scottish people, and it appears the Chamber is starting to resemble the Scottish nobility.
Despite the Chamber’s sudden interest in “responsible drilling” and the pursuit of “reasonable regulation,” I’ve never seen even one policy recommendation coming from this body during the 5 or so years our community has struggled with this issue. As I said in an open letter to the Chair of the Railroad Commissioner when he penned a letter of similar content to the Denton City Council, where have you been?
We are in need of solutions to very real problems.
Let’s make this very simple: the current legal, regulatory, and statutory situation allows for, and has resulted in, wells being drilled within 200 feet of existing neighborhoods. Is this an example of responsible drilling? If not, what are your specific policy or legal suggestions to fix this problem?
Despite numerous offers of help and claims that this can be fixed through “reasonable regulation” by industry, state, and local leaders, we have yet to see anyone coming to the table with a solution. It should be of no surprise that there is growing frustration among our citizenry. Without solutions, people who might have been advocates of the natural gas revolution two years ago now have good reasons to think their neighborhood could be the next to turn into an industrial drilling field.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy to all of this is the colossal waste of time, energy, and money the Chamber is spending on this effort to defend an industry that has virtually no economic impact on our city. Meanwhile, the people of our city are ushering in an entrepreneurial renaissance, a tech boom, and an explosion in social enterprise. Why aren’t we spending time nurturing these and moving our economy into the 21st century? Furthermore, our city has significant economic issues to address. 45% of our city’s kids need economic assistance to pay for lunch at school. 51% of our city’s single moms are below the poverty line. Our median household income is the lowest in the county and below the state average. Food stamp recipients have doubled in our city since 2007. What if our business leaders spent their time launching initiatives to tackle these problems instead of protecting the economic interests of the elite few among them?
Because of all this, I have written the Chamber asking that they remove me and my company from their membership roll. I continue to be ready and willing to work with anyone on either side of this debate to find meaningful and productive solutions, but I can’t lend financial support to the political hackery of an industry intent on harming my city.
City Council Preview – September 16, 2014
The City Council will meet at 3pm on Tuesday for a Work Session, followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session – both at City Hall at 215 E. McKinney Street. Click here for a full agenda online and look below for some highlights you may want to know.
TREE CODE, TREE FUND, and TREE TRUSTS
It ought to be well-established by now that a city full of trees is a good thing. It looks better, it is better for our air and our environment, and it means higher property values. How to incentivize developers to save trees and plant more of them has been a long-standing discussion in the city of Denton. Everybody seems to agree that changes are needed in our code in order to achieve our tree policies and goals. Last Fall, the council directed the Planning Department to proceed with plans to tackle this issue is 2014. We will receive an update on the progress as well as a timeline for the completion of the work. The staff report for this Work Session item has a great summary of the history of this discussion in Denton – see it here.
FINAL APPROVAL OF CITY BUDGET
The council has been discussing the city budget since early summer. For a recap on this discussion, check out all the info including previous presentations, budget timelines, and even a helpful video explaining the city budget on the city’s budget website. This website is the direct result of discussions between the city’s finance office and the Committee for Citizen Engagement. We agreed the city budget can be difficult to grasp and there needed to be more information presented in a more user-friendly format.
The General Fund (that which is funded mostly through sales and property taxes and is used to fund many of the things we expect from a city: libraries, police and fire, parks, etc.) is set at around $90 million and the entirety of the city budget (including utilities) is just about $900 million.
Here are some aspects of this year’s budget that I am proud to see:
- AVOIDANCE OF A 1 CENT TAX INCREASE: During last year’s budget talks, we forecasted the need for a 1 cent tax increase that would go into effect this coming fiscal year. Thanks to a stronger-than-anticipated revenue (property taxes, in particular) and solid financial planning, this has been avoided.
- INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY and INNOVATION-FOCUSED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: It was less than a year ago that I highlighted the city’s lack of focus on this growing and important sector of our local economy. This budget includes $220,000 for our Economic Development office to invest in tech-focused entrepreneurial innovation in our city. We’ve come a long way since launching our Creative Economy initiative. Now everyone is talking about what high tech could mean for Denton. This is great.
- NEW TOOL TO MAKE IT EASIER TO START A BUSINESS IN DENTON: I’ve been attending the Code for America Summit since 2012. It’s a gathering of some of the greatest minds in technology who are targeting their talents toward improving the way city governments work. It’s sort of a Peace Corps for geeks. There I discovered a new tool called OpenCounter which aims to make it easier for small business owners to navigate the timeline, permits, and fee structures involved with doing business in a city. The city now plans to contract with this innovative technological company to help small business owners in Denton.
- BIKE AND PEDESTRIAN IMPLEMENTATION COORDINATOR: We have a great bike and pedestrian plan, we’ve funded it, now we need the right person to make sure we stay on task to meet our goals and implement our plan. This year’s budget includes the funding to hire such a person.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
A Tale of Two Babies: a Reflection on Public Education
This is a re-post of an article I wrote a year ago in praise of teachers and public education. As we start the school year, it seems relevant once again…
It seems that during the same time I was nervously awaiting the birth of my third child last month, the rest of the world was eagerly standing vigil for another, more decidedly regal birth: Prince George of Cambridge. I took the opportunity to reflect upon this, wondering as I held little baby Pearl in my arms what it would be like to bear the responsibility of rearing a future King (or Queen, in my case).
What would be my priorities as a parent? What virtues would best lend themselves to ruling a country and how would I instill those? What type of education would be befitting a future ruler?
But a future ruler is precisely what I have in my arms. This is the ideal of democracy, of our commitment to self-rule – every citizen is a ruler. And the extent to which our little ones are properly reared toward this end, our democratic experiment thrives.
This is why our nation’s commitment to a public government was very quickly followed by a commitment to a public education, accessible to all. A healthy democracy requires an educated citizenry. In a day when teachers and public schools are criticized at every turn and the problems of public education lead many a politician, business leader, and arm chair educator to question its value, we would do well to pause and wonder at the ambitious task we have undertaken as a society: we will educate EVERYONE.
Whether you come to Kindergarten prepared or not, we will educate you. Whether you speak English or another language, we will educate you. Whether anyone has ever read you a book before, we will educate you. Whether you come to school with a full belly or you have not eaten since the school fed you yesterday, we will educate you. Whether you come from a loving family or from generations of abuse, we will educate you.
We do this because we understand that the future of our society depends on it. We are taking that which is good and true about our civilization and the civilizations around the world and transmitting it to the next generation. We do this because we have a robust view of the nature and possibilities of humans. Human greatness can be found in each of us, not just among the royals, aristocrats, or rich. We believe that education is the key to unlocking human potential and is the path whereby we learn just what it means to be human.
To the teachers, administrators, and school staff busily readying our Denton schools for a new year: thank you. You are helping us realize our unparalleled and monumental goal of educating all of our young citizens. The future of our civilization and the success of our American democracy is being worked out in your classroom every day.
To the rest of us: we’re in this game, too. The education of the young citizens of our city is all of our responsibility. Stay tuned later this week to hear about an ambitious project to help our public schools and to make sure no young Denton citizen falls through the cracks. We’ll ask you to join us as we change our city, one student at a time.
AND AN UPDATE ON THOSE TWO BABIES…
HELP NEEDED: Supplies for the SE Denton Back to School Fair
The MLK Center Advisory Board in partnership with the Denton Police Department, Fire Department, Parks and Recreation, and several others will host the annual Southeast Denton Back to School Fair on Saturday, August 23 at 10am at the MLK Center.
It is estimated that over 11,000 Denton kids are in need of some sort of assistance with beginning of the year school supplies: a backpack, pencils, notebooks, folders, crayons, and the like.
This is a problem we can solve. Bring a backpack and or supplies between now and Friday, August 22 to the MLK Center at 1300 Wilson Street and drop them off at the front desk. Thanks, Denton!
A Time to Lead: The Council’s Decision on the Proposed Convention Center
On Tuesday, the city council will likely take up a discussion of whether to put an item on the August 12th agenda calling an election to take the Convention Center project to the voters. I have long been scheduled for a work trip to Pittsburgh this week and will unfortunately miss the meeting. So in order to be crystal clear of my position to the public, my colleagues, our partners in this deal, and city staff, I write this.
Citizen engagement has been one of my top priorities during my time on council. I am known to host town hall and neighborhood meetings on all sorts of topics in all sorts of places: homes, restaurants, rec centers, bars, and even my own living room. I’ve brought engagement into the 21st century through weekly council updates on my website and through engaging the citizenry every day on Facebook and Twitter. When citizen involvement in the gas drilling issue looked slim, I initiated the formation of what is now known as the DAG group to seek more feedback and involvement. I initiated the creation of and now chair the Council Committee on Citizen Engagement where we monthly make improvements to the city’s outreach to and involvement of our citizens. I am a clear advocate of meaningful citizen involvement both through my words and my actions.
I also recognize when it is time for the council to stand up and lead. To make clear decisions, utilizing the feedback and ideas generated from among the citizenry and the hours of analyzing data and background information.
Make no mistake – people can and do use talk of citizen participation as a way to delay, slow down, or outright kill projects that they disagree with. We saw a clear example of this in the lead-up to the July 15 vote on the proposed fracking ban. The call to “send it to the voters” came most strongly from those opposing the ordinance. They knew they stood a better chance at batting down the initiative if this went to a city wide vote. On the surface were lofty claims of democratic ideals – behind the scenes it was pure political strategy.
It is surely not lost on many in our community that some of the biggest proponents to take this convention center project “to the voters” also argued just a couple weeks ago that taking the fracking ban to the voters was irresponsible – they wanted council to act. They wanted council to lead.
For some, calls for city-wide votes on important issues are simply strategic ways to take down an idea or project they don’t like. If they like something, they want council to act. If they don’t, they want council to put it before the voters. I submit this is an unhealthy standard for deciding how to implement direct democracy.
After three years of negotiations, planning, providing direction to move this project forward at every turn, making commitments to various partners (including the University of North Texas, a most important community partner), approving a developer’s agreement, and asking all partners to spend considerable money to develop these plans, it would now be a complete abdication of council leadership to skirt our citizen-given responsibility by failing to act and sending this to the November ballot.
This does not mean that we are required to ultimately approve this project – there are certainly reasonable arguments on all sides of this debate. What it does mean is that we must provide the leadership to debate this and provide clear council direction one way or another.
Sending this to the voters might be a convenient and politically easy way for some of us to avoid taking a public stance on this issue. But that is not leadership. Sending this to the voters would result in the following:
- The council and city staff, subsequent to calling the election, would be prevented by state law from advocating for or against this project. Here is a major economic development deal and one of the major partners must be silent for 3 months leading up to the election.
- This would leave the other two partners, including UNT, to carry the public argument for this project alone with no help from the city. I submit this is no way to foster positive relationships with important partners.
- Our partners, who have engaged with us in good faith over the last three years believing that the council was willing and able to make important decisions, who themselves are able to make important decisions, will be left questioning the resolve of the city on this issue and any future issues.
- The misinformation that has been circulating throughout the summer will likely win the day.
The future economic consequences of such a move are also worrisome. This signals to future economic development partners that the Denton City Council is unable to be a reliable partner on large, potentially long-term deals. When an issue gets controversial, they’ll fail to act, fail to vote, fail to take a stance, and fail to lead. It communicates that our city is not really interested in moving our city ahead economically, that we aren’t serious players.
Fellow council members, let’s have this debate. Argue against if you don’t like it. Argue for it if you do. But, for goodness sake, let’s be willing to make a decision. Let’s lead. It is what we were elected to do.