GEDC - $20,000 Position

So part of this weeks agenda at the council meeting was to hire a person as a personal assistant to Carolyn Gibsons. The GEDC board would pay $20,000 of the salary.  (Mind you GEDC just says tax dollars from another pocket)

I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what Ms Gibsons position is, though I know that GEDC pays a good bit of her salary.  I do though remember when she was hired that a good part of her position was to get grants and help GEDC with communicating with potential employers wanting to move to or expand in Gonzales.

So this new person will be there to, and I quote, "return phone calls and emails". 

I speak from personal experience, as I'm still awaiting a response to an email sent over 6 weeks ago, that Ms Gibson lacks the discipline or organizational skills to timely return calls and emails. 

My question though is do we need to hire ANOTHER person to do the work Ms Gibson was hired to do in the first place?

Look we've been through this before at JB Wells.  We didn't get the person in charge the training they needed to make them a better employee.  Instead we waited for years until it festered and blew up.

So why don't we, instead of hiring a new person, spend 1/2 that money and send Ms Gibson to school to teach her to be more organized and/or how to do her job better?  There are no excuses not to be able to return phone calls and emails except a lack of organizational skills.  And if we sent her to classes and she started writing grants and communicating with businesses better, don't we as a community think it would pay off 100 fold? 

June 5th the tabled discussion will come back on the floor.  I hope the new council will take a serious look at this issue and make a wise decision for the community.

God Bless
Dennis

What now?

So I'd like to take a POSITIVE set of ideas to the priority of what needs to be done next to our council members as they get started with new positions and a new person on the council. 

So give a couple of suggestions of what you've like started - finished - a new direction taken on. 

1) What should we do with JB Wells?
2) What priorities is our roads in town? Any particular street need working on?
3) What should we do for our kids in this town?
4) What needs to be done to help downtown thrive? 
5) What about all these committees, are they necessary? 
6) What should we do with the additional $400,000 in sales tax we just received?

Ok, I'm going to ask that you keep this positive, like a new kid on the block that is looking for suggestions, not complaining about the past, I want to look forward for this post.  Not that we're going to forget anything in the past, but for this post, pretend there is no past.

If I were king (queen) for the day I would............................

Let's hear it and I'll make sure you're comments are heard by those up on the bench.

God Bless
Dennis

Vote Vote Vote

Ok,

- Just because you received 2 voter registration cards does not mean that you get to vote 2x.

- And just because our city has already messed up part of the election, and I'd say there is a 50/50 chance we'll have to have a re-election at substantial cost to the taxpayers.
- And just because you don't like any of the candidates.
- And just because....well you get my drift here

you STILL have a civic obligation to VOTE!  If you weren't one of the nearly 500 who voted in our city election in early voting tomorrow is your day!  If you didn't vote in the water district election, tomorrow is your day!

There are NO excuses that you either didn't vote, or don't vote.  When you don't vote, all the other idiots in the world (guys like me) get to pick for you!  So you get to live with what I (and those like me) decide, not what you want.

No excuses.

Go vote in our local elections.  County and state are coming up too, then we'll get a reprieve until November.

So VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!

God Bless,
Dennis