Kevin Roden for Denton City Council

A Note of Encouragement Relating to the Gas Well Ordinance

October 14th, 2012Uncategorized2 comments

There is increasing frustration among many who have been following the trials and tribulations of the city’s rewriting of the gas well ordinance.  I understand these concerns precisely because I share many of them.  I know it is not fashionable in this environment to admit mistakes, but let’s be blunt: The process by which we pursued the task of writing this ordinance has been a bungled mess.  It has brought about a frustrated, disenchanted, exasperated, and increasingly skeptical citizenry, and it has produced a mediocre draft ordinance lacking in both creativity and rigor.

Yet, I have not lost hope.

My discouragement is tempered, first of all, by the fact that I am not surprised by what has come about. Some history… The original suggestion from city staff was to have an official task force with only three members. Had that idea gone through, the task force would have been composed of Ed Ireland, Don Butler, and John Siegmund – this was presented to council during my first council meeting following my election in Spring of 2011.  I was not the only one among my colleagues who expressed concerns with this make-up and eventually we saw the addition of Vicki Oppenheim and Tom LaPoint.  Early conceptions of what this task force would do and how they would do it were very different with what ultimately came about.  You might recall that their first meetings were not open to the public and involved no public participation.  Through council encouragement, the task force meetings became open, televised, and contained a time for public comment.  With a task force weighted quite heavily on the side of industry, it was important to me that the public have the chance to see the dynamics of their decision-making process.  And what we witnessed was not surprising. Only a couple of the task force members came to the table with creative ideas – the other three, not surprisingly, existed primarily to vote down many of those ideas.  You might recall a post on this website where I called out the double talk of one of our Task Force members.

This is why City Council, during our May 8 briefing on this subject, encouraged the staff to treat the official Task Force recommendations as just one perspective among others to be considered. We were clear that we wanted greater discussion and explanation for Task Force votes that didn’t pass.  We were also clear that we wanted the Minority Report vetted thoroughly prior to the process moving forward.  Finally, city council made it clear that we wanted the chance to thoroughly discuss what should or should not be included in this ordinance PRIOR to it coming to us in draft form.  One of my colleagues on council put it this way: “Having legal coming up with final form ordinance provisions at this time is a waste of a lot of resources. If we are going to weigh in substantively and have public comment, that’s still a relatively developmental stage.”  You can go here to read the postscript I wrote following that meeting.

I have been assured that we will hear more on a vetting of the minority report and the non-unanimous vote items that did not pass through the official Task Force. It is obvious, however, that the council has not yet had the chance to substantially weigh in on this ordinance.

Herein lies the second reason why I continue to hold out hope: the very entity who holds all the power as to what is ultimately contained in this ordinance and whether or not such an ordinance is passed or rejected, the city council, has yet to weigh in. The fact that a substantial conversation with council on what should or shouldn’t be in this ordinance has not yet occurred is problematic only from the point of view of process and efficiency, not from the point of view of what will be the end result of this ordinance. The current city council has a well-documented history of digging into the minutia of ordinances of lesser consequence. Take, for instance, our ongoing discussions on the new food truck ordinance. Council has spent nearly 5 hours in public discussion picking apart problems with a proposed ordinance designed to allow food trucks in Denton, only to send it back twice for more revisions. We demonstrated on that issue and several others that efficiency will take a back seat to substance when we are concerned with “getting it right.”

In order to give my third reason for hope, I must return to the first reason – my lack of surprise in the results of the official process. I continue to believe, just as I argued upon running for office, that our best ideas in Denton come not from our government or its processes, but from our citizens. This is why one of the first things I did after getting elected was to call together a meeting of UNT professors who oversee the nation’s leading PhD program in environmental ethics in order to seek their service in this process.  From there, I gathered several concerned citizens who were interested in our gas drilling ordinance rewrite, connected them with Dr. Adam Briggle, charged them with advising the city on this issue (even if unofficially), and let them do their work.  Thus was born the Denton Stakeholder Drilling Advisory Group (DAG) and a subsequent flurry of educational programs, citizen forums, recommendations, and true grassroots democracy at its finest.  Though I was unsuccessful in making space for them in the official process, due to their diligence, professionalism, and expertise, their influence has been notable every step of the way.  The past, present, and future work of DAG is my third reason to hold out hope. The work they have already done to point out the deficiencies of the current draft ordinance combined with their promise to generate substantial creative ideas for inclusion in a final ordinance is precisely what I need as a policy maker who is about to enter into this discussion.

The example of DAG throughout this process is encouraging because it has given us a clear picture of an important democratic principle: that which emerges from the engagement of civic-minded, educated citizens at the grass roots level will always be better than that which results from the top-down.  We need to always be mindful that when we meaningfully engage our citizens in policy making, we not only get the benefit of making better policy, but we also have the beautiful consequence of creating better citizens.  So while my initiative to form the DAG group was meant to engage citizens in the particular problem of our gas drilling ordinance, it is clear that we need to do a better job in engaging our citizens in all areas of city policy.

My fourth and final reason for continued hope is that we are on a path toward better citizen engagement. A few months ago, I proposed the creation of a new Council Committee for Citizen Engagement.  The council unanimously voted to approve its creation and we met for the first time last week to map out an ambitious agenda of better engaging our citizens.  I am proud to serve as the Chairman of the committee along with fellow council members Dalton Gregory and Jim Engelbrecht.  From now on, whenever a major policy issue is planned to come before the city council, the Committee for Citizen Engagement will, prior to a process being initiated, take a careful look at how best to involve the citizens and suggest a process plan to the entire City Council.  With this in place, the process of future issues as important and potentially controversial as gas drilling ordinances will be predetermined by the body who should be making such decisions: the City Council.

I continue to have hope and you should as well. Democracy is messy, but it is worth it.