Three Cheers for Cindy Horswell at the Houston Chronicle for reporting on the lapse, the lapse of memory, the lapse of honesty of the commissioners and the lapse of credulity we are all experiencing.
Remember the letter the grand Jury members sent to Commissioners court following the investigation into the funding fiasco of the Joe Corley facility?
According to Montgomery County Police Reporter one juror quipped “We expect more from our elected county officials,”.
Well you can expect into one hand and… well you know the rest.
The letter ended with
We strongly challenge our Commissioners Court to immediately consider and adopt ethical guidelines that prohibit members of this Court and other county employees from conducting personal business with vendors, developers, architects and engineers currently engaged in the pursuit of county business. This simple ethical practice avoids the appearance of impropriety and the easy lure of inappropriate financial dealings.
Our county officials should not profit on the backs of their constituents.
Ha ha, well they forgot. And Cindy Horswell did the unthinkable, she reminded them about the admonition of the Grand Jury – “After receiving the grand jury’s letter, commissioners took no action on adopting an ethics code for a year.”
Then Commissioner Noack made an effort when he took office and heck, i guess he forgot too.
The Juror ( Mr Cates) in the story has been waiting 3 years and says the last time he brought it up was just two months ago. Now everyone is finger pointing. But the public goes on and keeps electing these people.
They are making fools of you.
One thing I disagree with Mr. Cates on is his call for a Civilian Ethics Committee. Citizen Committees are a mistake. Elected officials love committees because they deflect scrutiny and blame form the elected officials. Think about it. If you think Joe Blow should be on the Civilian Ethics Committee then he is the one you should be voting for instead of the elected official he will be watching.
Any Committee will raise a need for another committee to watch it. I hate committees. they hide behind pseudo authority because of their “official” status but they are not legally accountable to anyone. Not open records nothing.
Citizen/Civilian committees are just another prop for elected officials and just another reason for regular people to leave their government on remote control allowing them to roll over and go back to sleep. Look at the ISD BOND committees for example. How has that worked out for you?
Meanwhile we still need to deal with the Sgt Schultz defense of our elected officials.
