Youth Rodeo Contract

So for those of you who are living in a cave or under a rock you might of missed that in October our city manager signed a 10 year agreement to host another rodeo here in Gonzales at taxpayer expense.  The Gonzales Canon and the Gonzales Inquirer both printed these press releases that spoke about how wonderful a deal we got out of these deal.  I take exception to these postings, and to Mr. Mundys editorial "Arena expansion: You have to spend money to make money" (http://www.gonzalescannon.com/node/3647" telling us that we need this to grow, even though we don't have the infrastructure in place to benefit from the upcoming rodeo.  


I posted the following rebuttal to Mr. Mundys editoral:

While I agree we need change, and have supported issues like liquor by the drink to help bring an economy to this town I have several issues with this agreement that has been made with the rodeo.

1) We do not have the spaces needed to properly host this event. So now Mr Huseman and his hence men are trying to make this happen with sweet deals to GEDC if they will approve the money. The last time we added spaces to the arena it was estimated by Mr. Huseman to cost $1000 each, wound up costing approximately $2500 each, and now they want 300 more? Tally that on your fingers and toes.

2) Not even our elected city government (or at least 3 of the councilmen) we even aware of this contract, a significant liability to the city, until the papers ran the story. Why even have officials if there is no say? This contract was signed in October, see an issue here?

3) The city council told the city manager NO to expanding JB Wells, and yet he has ignored them.

4) We, as a city were promised an area for all of Gonzales out in JB Wells. I have copies of the plans that were originally brought to the people of Gonzales and to the Texas Parks and Wildlife, for funding, and it is NOT a huge rodeo area, but a common park for all of Gonzales. Why are we changing plans instead of completing the plans we have already in place?

5) Why are we again putting the horse before the cart? Even you said it, we have NO PLACE for these people to come spend money in Gonzales. The business base is not set up for it, and so we are NOT going to prosper from it. We need to be working on getting our 2 town squares filled with businesses as a #1 priority so that we CAN deal with visitors like these.

6) Even with JUST the $25 per head for 550, these rodeo visitors would have to spend $687,500 to break even on sales tax (2% sales tax rate, 550, $13,750 we are paying out, simple math), and that's not counting all the other concessions and items we are responsible for in the contract. Please someone lie to me and tell me we'll get real close to that number, but I don't think so.

7) We STILL haven't gotten a handle on the way we run our arena and the accounting over there! So lets make the problem bigger, because bigger will only make our losses greater....oh wait, something isn't right with that statement is it?

8) I spoke at the last city council meeting about secrecy in our city government. I understand contracts and negotiations, but this is once again a case of our city manager (and who ever else is involved) ignoring the will of the people of this town, the city council and going behind our backs to do something they were told we don't want. So in secrecy they've gone and done it and are taking the approach it's better to ask for forgiveness that permission. I for one and tired of this attitude from SOME of our city employees that think we work for them. This is our city, our taxes, our budget, and our livelihoods that are affected here, and we are suppose to have a say that counts!

And for the record I didn't read in the paper where the arena and all of it's facilities are at NO COST to the association putting on the event. That we will be providing most of the items used during this rodeo at our cost with their emblem and the year put on everything.

I wish I could run a business where I didn't have to pay for my building, my equipment, and oh the city is going to be providing a good bit of the labor for it, so the association isn't paying for that either, I AM as a taxpayer here in Gonzales.

I'm surprised that every business doesn't move to Gonzales with incentives like that, oh but wait, I'm not a rodeo, so my business doesn't count to the city does it?

Dennis Nesser

So my question is why are we allowing anything to happen without ramifications to those ignoring the elected officials and the taxpayers of this town?   Why can't we take care of long standing problems before we move forward?  Why is it our city continues to run in secrecy thinking we as citizens, "aren't smart enough to handle the truth"?

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser

Not done with JB Wells

So now the initial shock of the whole 'let's spring the JB Wells project on the city council' is over we need to look at a few more issues over this whole process.

Let's start with the citys' notification of the public for the Open Meeting laws.  All meetings have to be posted 72 hours in advance of a meeting.  Now I happen to have been up on the city website last weekend.  I don't recall seeing any posting for this special meeting anywhere.

Per the city secretary: "I further certify that the following News Media were properly notified of the above stated meeting: KCTI Radio Station, Gonzales Inquirer, Gonzales Cannon. This is what is on the agenda posted for council meetings.

Now let's look at this little issue.  If both papers were notified Friday, and the GI prints on Tuesday, the Cannon prints on the following Friday, and let's be honest, while most of us might know where 1450 is on our radio dial, it's not something we keep on everyday.  I love some of their programs, and especially special events, but I'm not getting my news there.  But my point is that NO ONE is going to find out about the meeting till after the meeting is over.  Do you think this was the mayor and/or city manager trying to get only those hand picked to be at the meeting that Monday night? You don't think they would be that underhanded, low-down and just that dishonest do you?

So the question starts with, why isn't the city website updated? Wouldn't that be the most logical place to start the notification process?  In todays world there should be a RSS feed that will update to anyone that would like to follow straight from the website.  It's built into all windows machines to follow RSS.  Even basic blogger pages like this one has it.  If I update this blog and you have the RSS set up then you see it in your drop down shortly after I've posted.  The city can't even handle something that simple? Heck they can't even be bothered to post it on their own website! Anyone else see a problem with this lack of process to inform the public of an upcoming special meeting? Maybe by the letter of the law they did what they needed to, but not by the spirit of the law.

So let's talk about the notification that the mayor and city manager gave the 3 councilmen that did not second the motion.  Friday afternoon they were given their packages with the $5,000,000 project.  Now this leads someone to believe one of 2 things.  Either the council had worked closely with this committee to get this program finalized....oh wait that didn't happen, so that leaves the second option, they wanted to slip this right past without many questions.

When you present this size project to someone it takes time to digest and get their questions in line, so that they can get reasonable answers before expected to vote on the issue.  How could you expect anyone to vote on ANY $5,000,000 project without time to digest it and get reasonable answers before voting for it?

My second problem is we don't even have control of the arena in it's present condition.  Did you know that we lost over $200,000 last year on the arena.  Now how can you tell me on one hand how much more money we're going to make if we expand, when we're not making money now?  Does that mean we'll LOSE that much more money?

Now in all fairness I have 2 comments on the lose.  First is that the city is always going to provide some services to the community at a lose.  Not everything is going to make a profit, but the loses should be kept to a minimum.  Second, I'm not sure if the arena was properly run that our loses would be anywhere near that great.  Ask someone at the city how often we inventory out at the arena, if they tell you more than once a year they aren't being truthful with you.  Ok, I'll say it straight up, they'd be lying to you.  What business, that stays in business inventories just once a year? This is bad business practices and should be corrected by our city manager immediately.

Now I know the Doc Graham is burning up the phone lines trying to get this project passed.  He's got the mayor asking for private meetings with councilmen to try to get pass all this.  Between the 2 of them they just don't understand, this town doesn't want to spend $5,000,000 for the benefit of an elite few.  So now it's your turn to make a difference.  Write you councilman and let them know to hold the course and let this project die.  Call them and let them know how much you support Tommy, Gary and Lorenzo and their decision to use good fiscal sense for our town. You can respond here, even anonymously, and let them know you are in support of what they are doing. I will personally make sure they get the responses.  If you don't let them know then they will have to guess. Don't leave any doubt in their mind that they are doing the right thing.

Now I also want to point out that this 'committee' was NEVER appointed by the city council!  Our charter specifically states all committees have to be appointed by the city council.  No committee put together by the city manager or any other group has any more influence as a committee then you or I going up and talking to the city council.  Mind you they can listen, but they have no obligation to act on it.

So now it's your time, let's hear from you Gonzales, let the city manager, the mayor, and all of the city councilmen know where you stand!

God Bless
Dennis Nesser