Quack?

When I started this blog and put up my board I knew I'd piss off some people.  Anytime you start putting lights on peoples sacred cows people are going to be piss, it's just the facts of life.  

I've pissed off the mayor.  I've pissed of fans of Mr. Huseman.  I've pissed of a TON of rodeo arena people. And I've said from the beginning that I was willing to deal with that as long as the facts were there. And trust me there have been times that I've had to dig deep to keep from just throwing my hands up from the apathetic responses. And as I've said over the year there are things that are my opinion.  How I rank priorities for our budget is just one of them.  

In doing so I put on my blog that if you disagreed with me that's fine. I don't delete those who have descending opinions, and give them an open forum to put out the facts too.  It's how we get challenged, it's how we learn to reevaluate situations, it's how we learn to come up with solutions to problems, sometimes problems we didn't even know we had till someone points them out.  As long as we are respectful of each other we can workout most anything. 

Now before I go any further I want to make this clear that there are some VERY good people who volunteer at FOGAS and are animal lovers in this town.  Rodeos would happen without love for animals.  I personally love dogs, and while admittedly am not a cat lover, I've never swerved to run over a cat either. 

But the 'respect' for one another crossed the line on Friday night when my board was vandalized while it has a comment about the $128,415 that Gonzales has spent on Animal Control which I feel is in excess for a town our size.  My house was the only one with reported graffiti.  It was not children playing or a random act.

It was in my opinion, an animal person who doesn't know where the lines of civility are drawn.  I've offended them, and instead of bringing the facts they stooped to prove their point.  Oh my, I'm so intimidated now.  I've changed my mind and we should double FOGAS and our Animal control budget for Gonzales. I'm going to take down my board and never say anything controversial again. NOT!

If anything it has set my resolve to make sure everyone in Gonzales that I might of missed in getting the information on what animal control is costing in this city gets that information.  It's set my resolve to make sure that animal control comes back into line with what surrounding cities pay for animal control.  I want to thank whoever did this for encouraging me.  I was changing the board Saturday morning, instead I repainted it, so now my message will be cleared.


To whomever did this, I'm not sure if you were just trying to embarrass me, 'send me a message', to cause us to 'save' FOGAS, oh hell, I don't even care.  But what I do care is that what you did is illegal.  And as such are nothing more than a thug.  So if that's what you wanted to prove, you succeeded.  I hope you're proud.

For those who want to help, if you so much as hear a peep, because someone will say something sometime or another, do what's right and please call the Gonzales Police Department, Officer Matthew Camarillo is the investigating officer.

To rap it up, I find it funny that out of everyone I've pissed off in this town through this blog and my sign, that it's an animal person that crosses the line. What's the message in that?

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser

White Elephant, or Cats and Dogs

So since the city budget meetings there has been a lot of talk about the cost of animal control in Gonzales.  Bottom line is that we as tax payers have paid $128,415 YTD.  Those figures are directly from the package provided to the media and council members for the last council meeting. 

As I have looked around at other cities budgets, I have yet to come across one that has averaged more than $10 per person in the city regardless of the size of the city.  And actually the larger cities like San Antonio bring that cost down to $1-$3 per person.  I understand economy of scale, but ours is running nearly double that at $18.35+ per person. 

I also understand that the volunteers at FOGAS put in their own time, sweat and money to keep these facilities running, as do every other volunteer of every other organization in our great town. 

Mine is with Scouting.  I hear Mr. Burchard and Mr. Dement talk about purchasing and taking care of items for beautification projects in town. All those that serve on boards in our town do so for $0.  If I had to venture to guess I would bet those at the Gonzales Youth Center have done the same thing.  It's what we do when we feel passionate about a cause. 

The difference is that our budget is not a substantial part of the budget of our city.  In some cases it's $0.  In some cases there are public funding for the projects.  And honestly I would prefer to see the city hire a grant writer to help some of these organizations then to keep paying their way. Not that the causes aren't good valid causes, but public funding comes at a price to everyone, including those taking the money. 

It's my understanding that we have the 'Gold Standard' of animal control.  It's a no kill facility.  The cats and dogs are placed at every opportunity, and if I've read correctly many many have been.  I know my son has adopted 3 cats (no not for my house) from FOGAS. 

The problem I have is this, WE CAN'T AFFORD THE GOLD STANDARD!  This year we are already running at a $420,000 deficit.  That is before any unforeseen issues, and the year just started 8 days ago.  I personally want a 6 bedroom house with 20 acres, a Jaguar, a Rolls Royce and a nice big pickup truck for pulling my waited fishing boat and trailer that I don't have.  All those things are great, and if I had the money I would be able to have. 

If we as a town had the money, then having the great level of animal control we have would be a great thing.  We don't have the money, and being able to bring our cost down to less than $10/head is where we need to be at.  That's cutting the current Animal Control spending to less than $70,000.  In my books that's almost a $60,000 savings over where we currently are. 

I know this issue is a sore spot for many.  It's ok, and we will have to agree to disagree, but when we are loosing policemen because of less than $3,000 a year, and we have departments of employees sitting on their hands because they don't have gas money, and we have pot holes that need to be fixed, and we have raw sewage running above ground, and we have....you get the picture, then every $100 counts, and $60,000 counts a lot!

There are still other areas that need approaching too.  I will be doing Feb and Mar numbers on JB Wells next week with any luck.  They still aren't off my radar.  There are other areas I'm looking at too.  But for now, since it's such a big financial target FOGAS and the entire Gonzales Animal Control is todays topic. Our entire city council needs to reevaluate the value that this method of animal control is bringing to our great city.

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser

Where to start?

First of all I want to point out that our city is functioning in a FAR better manner than it has in years as far as transparency, and as far as I can tell openness to the council. Last nights city council agenda had over 30 items on it.  Some were what some people might of call bs items, but all of them were rightfully on the agenda.  This is a testament to Mr. Windwehen, and the city employees that have rallied around him to get our city government back in check.  Thank you!

With that said there were a couple of items that I didn't understand at last nights meeting.

1) I don't understand why public comments were moved to the beginning when Roberts Rules of Orders specifically state all discussion on a matter should happen AFTER the question (the issue) is put to the floor (meaning a motion and a second has been made).  So now we are suppose to just sit on our hands and say nothing during the entire city council meetings regardless of what is valid or invalid being said. What happens when a point is brought up by a council member now?  We as citizens aren't suppose to speak, so we can't give the answers needed for well informed decisions.  On top of which, it's the 'sometimes' that someone makes a valid point during that discussion of an item that makes the difference in a vote.

2) I don't understand why that rule was to be broken for one item on the agenda, the vote of a city paper of record.  Why is it EVERYONE else had to obey the rules EXCEPT the Gonzales Inquirer.  Then Mayor O'Neil in 'fairness' said, "we'll have to let the other side speak".  Either we are going to do it this way or not! You can't have it one way except when you want to hear from someone.  There is no fairness on the 29+ other issues that were discussed at the meetings.

3) I will never understand why the pride of some will not let them admit they've made a mistake.  Mayor O'Neils proclamation declaring a Roaches Day for the City of Gonzales is inexcusable under the current circumstances.  Pastor Roaches is currently being indited for a felony, and declaring this at this time was in poor taste and judgement.  Let him prove he's innocence and THEN approve it.  But for the mayor to try to defend that at a city council meeting just shows he's out of touch with reality!

On the bright side, and there is plenty of that, Mr. Windwehem supported my comment that there needs to be a procedure for board vacancies so that all citizens of Gonzales could be made aware of openings.  You will probably find some great new candidates to fill these instead of the same crowd over and over again.  Remember though, ALL of these are volunteers, and regardless of their affiliations are still paid zippo for their time and efforts and should be thanked for doing so.

For the second month in a row the council saw a running budget.  It's always amazed me that the city council was asked to run the city without knowing what was coming in or going out in money.  This is a fantastic improvement and clears up much of the muddy water that use to be there.

The movement of St. George electrical is on track and already looking better!

We have a process started to get a full time city manager.  If I understood correctly we've still get about 6 months or so before we'll see one, but we are on track.  Hopefully Mr. Windwehem will stay with us till the bitter end on this one and help guide our council to a great replacement that will continue on the wonderful things he's started.

I saw the city council table several items for lack of information.  What a great thing.  In the past it always felt like they needed to vote on everything, last night it didn't work that way.

The city passed a ban on K2 and synthetic drugs.  In the past we were told wait till the state took care of it.  I'm glad to see our council addressing and taking care of it themselves!

I also saw a fairly full chambers in a meeting that didn't have anything of public controversy.  Not that there wasn't some controversy, but it wasn't of the public magnitude of JB Wells, the City Managers firing, or the horse issue.  And yet there were a room full of concerned citizens there.  Way to go Gonzales!

We didn't get where we are in a day, but I think we are on the back right road to pointing our great town in the right direction.   I would like to see the discussion put back where it belongs, after the 2nd of  a motion.  It parliamentary procedure 101. I hope the council follows my request, with the city managers support to come up with a procedure for board vacancies. And I hope Mayor O'Neil will think before he signs another proclamation declaring someone a great person, and make sure that person truly deserves that recognition.

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser

Postpone Petition

The following is the letter I just sent to the newspapers concerning the petition for term limits.  Please understand that it is not a problem with the term limits, but purely the unnecessary cost to the taxpayers of Gonzales.

I've been hesitant to pull the petition until I was certain that the elections were not going to happen.  Tonight will be vote by the council to cancel the election, and in doing so puts the entire project in a different light.
 

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I wanted to let all those in support of the term limits that we pulling the petitions at this time.  Those of us who have put this together, are also those who are asking for financial responsibility within our city government.  With the recent events, there will be no city election this year for city council, so per the city charter a special election would have to be called by the city if the city council didn’t approve it. 

We didn’t want to take the chance that the council wouldn’t approve it and incur the cost of a special election, and secondly we would prefer this go before the city voters.  Per the charter, if the voters approve the amendment the city council can not change it in the future without a vote of the people.  We would prefer this to be the manner that this petition for term limits is approved, so that the people of Gonzales will ALWAYS have the final say on this issue.

We appreciate all the support and positive comments that have come our way.  Look forward to the petition coming back out in February 2012, so that it will be on the next general election. 

God Bless
Dennis Nesser