Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

12/1/15 Jones offers to pay Ben Matus to drop out of the race for County Commissioner Pct. 3. Jones said he was just trying to do the right thing.  Later interviews tell a different story.

2/3/16 District Attorney requests investigation by Texas Rangers. (Link)
I don’t think it was revealed that a Grand Jury recommended the investigation.
Recently, information regarding McLennan County Commissioner Precinct 3, Will Jones and his Administrative Assistant, Susanne Nemmer was brought to my attention. It is the recommendation of a current McLennan County Grand Jury that the following information be provided to the Texas Rangers for further investigation, if needed.

3/2/16 District Attorney receives anonymous letter alleging bribery. (Link)
This document is interesting because this is the first time the Anti-bribery statement comes up. That’s important later.
Interesting that the author states they fear retribution.

6/29/2016 Ranger Pena makes recommendation for full investigation for attempted bribery, a felony. (Link)
The really important thing to note here is how many people signed off on the recommendation. Note that each signature includes a note with the Ranger Chief approving the investigation.

7/6/16 Ranger interviews Jones. (Report) (Video)
Couple of things about the interview. Jones says he did it to save money. He also said his wife, an attorney, was involved in the decision. Jones, in his own words estimates he would save $40,000.00 if Matus dropped out. Listen to the statement about the District Attorney. Sounds like he believes the DA will fix it for him.

8/3/16 Appointment of presiding judge. (Appointment)
No motion to recuse 54th District Court Judge Matt Johnson has been found. While odd, the motion by the District Attorney addresses the issue.

8/9/16 E-mail from Ranger to AG about a conversation with Jones. (E-Mail)
It is interesting because it says Jones was concerned by the recusal of the local judge.

8/10/16 This is the motion by the DA and the Order signed by the judge GRANTING recusal of the DA. (Motion/Order)
This is the important part:
Although the undersigned is not disqualified to act in this matter as a matter of law, it would be in the best interest of justice and society to appoint an attorney pro tern because the Defendant is a County Commissioner for Precinct 3 in McLennan County, Texas and votes on budgetary and human resource matters brought before the Commissioner’s Court by the District Attorney’s Office.

2/3/17 Ranger sends e-mail to AG (Link)
From the e-mail:
There have been a couple anonymous phone calls to my office from McLennan County citizens expressing their concerns with Commissioner Jones. The rumor “around town” is Jones’ attorneys are going to get him off on a Misdemeanor, and Jones still feels like he did nothing wrong. The citizens feel like “politics” won again as Jones will go unpunished or the offense will be lessened. The callers are also upset about Jones intentionally swearing into office and signing certain forms.
Thinking those certain forms are the Anti-Bribery Statement. Why be obtuse if it was no issue?

3/21/17 AG files Information (Link)
Never see a black man charged by information.  Extra preferential treatment. Normal people just have a warrant issued and the police pick them up and put them in jail. This is so convoluted it took a while to figure out what happened.

3/21/17 Magistrate arraignment and Order (Link)
Nothing really interesting here. Normally it is a $2,000.00 bond for a Class A misdemeanor.

3/22/17 Ag sends e-mail to defense attorney outlining the plea offer. (Link)
Interesting part of the e-mail:
As I mentioned in our earlier meeting, as part of the deal Mr. Jones cannot plead no contest.
Apparently his attorney asked about pleading no contest and also asked about pre-trial intervention.

4/5/17 Complaint filed with AG. This was prior to Jones entering a plea. (Link)
This is a criminal complaint filed with the Ranger who forwarded it to the AG. The date is important and the complaint is the basis for complaints later found by a magistrate to be probable cause to support a warrant. As a result of this complaint, the AG called complainant and said they had looked at every aspect of possible charges and the engaging in organized criminal activity statute only applied to street gangs.

4/7/16 Follow-up to phone conversation with AG (Link)
It is interesting that there was never a response to this email and it was not furnished in response to a public information at request. Compare to Twin Peaks warrant.

5/5/17 Jones pleads guilty to Offering a Gift to Public Servant. (Link)

6/8/17 Complaints filed in Caldwell County and warrants issued. (Warrant 1, Warrant 2)
The powers that be lost it for a couple of reasons. Decide for yourself.
1. Everyone assumed only a police officer could file a complaint.
2. Everyone assumed only a local magistrate could make a probable cause determination.
Neither assumption is true but if it was true, it would make it much easier to take care of special people and cover up illegal activity.

6/9/17 Defense attorney notifies AG of new warrant. (Link)
This is where it gets predictably interesting.
Dunnam wrote to AG:
Gates, who was fired from the local Sheriff’s office, came to him this morning and gave him a copy of a complaint against Will Jones.
Gates left the Sheriff’s Office over a decade ago and was not fired. This is a blatant lie and attempt to deceive the AG.
Dunnam wrote:
Since this is an issue that we discussed and everyone looked at, I felt you should be made aware. 
This is interesting. Now the question is, did the AG authorize Jones to commit a felony offense because they were sure they were the only people who could prosecute the offense. Did the AG allow him to commit a felony so he would enter a plea to a lesser, earlier offense? They did discuss it and were aware of the issue March 2nd 2016.
AG replied:
Also please let me know if they actually try to arrest Mr. Jones. 
Wait, WHAT! The man is a convicted criminal and she is concerned about “Mr. Jones”
It gets better. Dunnam wrote to AG:
District Judge Judge Strother in Waco is going to consider the arrest of Will Jones in relation to 15.17d of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 
What is 15.17d?
Art. 15.17. DUTIES OF ARRESTING OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE. (d) If a magistrate determines that a person brought before the magistrate after an arrest authorized by Article 14.051 of this code was arrested unlawfully, the magistrate shall release the person from custody.

Art. 14.051. ARREST BY PEACE OFFICER FROM OTHER JURISDICTION. (a) A peace officer commissioned and authorized by another state to make arrests for felonies who is in fresh pursuit of a person for the purpose of arresting that person for a felony may continue the pursuit into this state and arrest the person.
(b) In this article, “fresh pursuit” means a pursuit without unreasonable delay by a peace officer of a person the officer reasonably suspects has committed a felony.

So Strother used a statute written for out of state police officers to dismiss charges. The statute provides a means for and out of State office in fresh pursuit of a felon to make an arrest in Texas. Here, not only was there no fresh pursuit, there was no out of state police officer. It was a warrant. The AG was aware but no objection noted in response to a public information act request.

Remember this part from 8/10/16?
Although the undersigned is not disqualified to act in this matter as a matter of law, it would be in the best interest of justice and society to appoint an attorney pro tern because the Defendant is a County Commissioner for Precinct 3 in McLennan County, Texas and votes on budgetary and human resource matters brought before the Commissioner’s Court by the District Attorney’s Office.
This is what the Dunnam e-mail said:
I am told that the McLennan County Assistant DA Michael Jarrett will be there for the State. This is supposed to be at 10:00am this morning. The DA has not recused at this point, but I still felt it important to advise you. Please consider the recusal of the DA was approved by a judge. The AG was aware of the recusal. The defense was aware of the recusal. You have to wonder how all of a sudden it was no longer in the interest of justice and society.

6/14/17 Motion filed with the judge who issued arrest warrants. (Link)
The issue of probable cause was actually determined in  an opinion of the 10th Court of Appeals in 2015. If you did not know, the 10th Court is in Waco and it was a Waco case decided.(Link)
From that opinion:
We reiterate that the affidavit does not have to establish the suspect’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of the evidence. As you can see above, they abandoned this plan. You have to wonder why. Did Strother step up to “Fix” it. Did Strother/DA/AG hatch a plan to “Help a brother out”? Why indeed? They could have run it by the Grand Jury who could of no-billed the charge. They didn’t and I think it is important to know why they chose to use a statute that was not applicable to to make two felony charges against the Commissioner go away.

6/17/17 Judge dismisses charges (Link to news report) (Other News report)

6/27/17 The manner in which the charges were made to go away was very questionable. I filed a request with the court for information. The court replied there were no responsive documents. (Link)

7/13/17 Strother pitches raise to Commissioners. (Video)
Strother says he has made the request before. No records exist of him making the request in the past.
Strother says he will allow the other Judges to make their case for raises. Later revealed he was making request for all staff of all District Courts.

7/15/17 Despite the cover-up by a district judge, the information turned up anyway. (Arraignment Form) (Warning)
Strother appears to take the position these are not judicial records but are court records not subject to Rule 12. The question a reasonable person would ask is, was there any doubt in the mind of the court what information was requested. If there was no doubt, why not make the information available? Why indeed?

8/10/17 Public hearing on the tax rate. The hearing is required by law. The County Judge believes 2-3 minutes is adequate to address a $100,000,000.00 budget.
(Link)

Clean your own house.

I ran across this article from Grits for Breakfast

Require criminal conviction for asset forfeiture
Sen. Konni Burton filed legislation that would void asset forfeiture proceedings if prosecutors failed to secure an underlying conviction.

It brought a couple of things to mind. While reading about William Wayne Justice I have often thought if the Texas Prison system had taken care of their business, the Ruiz decision might have gone differently. The very reason for the decision is TDC did not.
In an article by Radio Legendary People V. 2011 BMW 535-I details a seizure that fits both the proposed law and my thoughts on the Judge.

I believe asset forfeiture laws are an important tool to fight crime. History shows most of the bad laws come from failing to take care of business. In the BMW case, the stated reason for seizure alleged the vehicle was purchased with proceeds of a felony crime. The problem becomes evident on review of the court documents. Evidence to support the seizure details the vehicle was used in the commission of a felony offense with a total lack of any evidence to support the vehicle was purchased with proceeds of crime as alleged in the filing.

Close enough for government work? Apparently so. Consider though, when two Baylor University employees recently entered pleas in a DWI case, their attorney petitioned the court to dismiss charges due to double jeopardy after the court clerk discovered a date was missing from the court documents. Apparently the clerk was on vacation when the vehicle was awarded to the State.

The legislation offered by Senator Burton strikes a reasonable compromise, perhaps even a necessary one. While there are far more egregious cases involving asset forfeiture, the reality is, the system is responsible for greater restrictions on how the job is done.

2-16-15 Commissioners’ Court

How you got screwed this week.

First on the agenda was the Court met on Monday instead of their normal meeting day of Tuesday. They generally do not offer a reason because they assume the taxpayers are too ignorant to understand any way.

There is a budget amendment moving funds from the emergency fund to pay for fuel for the new Tradinghouse park manager. Not a big amount of money but it is not in the budget. The is the money Scott “Gruber” Felton said he was saving you by redistricting.

Much the same thing to buy a computer for the new Criminal Justice Analyst position. Not in the budget so rob the money from the emergency fund.

In the past, when an employee retired and had vacation time on the books, that person could not be replaced until they were paid from the budget. The incentive is for managers to stay on top of personnel management. The manager had  a responsibility. This year, a new trend started where rather than managing the human resources, they just shaft the taxpayers. The Commissioner only has a 6 figure compensation package, you can’t expect he would actually work for that meager sum.

So the generator at the Fairgrounds had a problem. The interesting thing about this one is the court already approved the repair and had no clue where the money was going to come from. I remember a story Don McCauley told about his A/C going out one year and the family had to choose between A/C and a family vacation. He would be rolling over in his grave over crap like this.

Discuss Here

About that lawsuit.

In a column published by Radio Legendary, details emerge related the the settlement of a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Documents responsive to a public information request further support early theories settlement of the lawsuit, contrary to reports by main-stream media, was not related to risk management but rooted in keeping the skeletons in the closet.

In one excerpt:

A public information request shows that Blossman’s evaluation after 6 months on the job showed a mediocre rating of 5.6 out of a possible 10 points, nothing unusual for a new hire still learning the tricks of the trade. When the documentation was changed over Eubank’s signature, he had received a glowing 7.75 points, complete with hyperbolic and superlative descriptive comments.

The speculation gained some steam after the Trib reported allegations of campaign finance violations:

Documents in a lawsuit claim McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara broke campaign finance laws and retaliated against a supporter of his political opponent by trying to block him from getting a job as a local police chief.

Further traction was attributed to the dismissal of a very similar lawsuit in Bell County just the day before the local suit was settled.

You will probably be much happier to take the word of the Waco Trib that your benevolent leadership was looking out for your best interest.

Cuss? Discuss? Debate? Go here.

Appraisal District Board of Directors

Looking for citizens who can do more than just rant on Facebook. Now is your chance to actually make a difference. The groundwork has been done and there is some evidence we are making progress.

The Board of Directors of the McLennan County Appraisal District (MCAD) is composed of 5 members. All five are elected every two years. They are elected by the taxing entities. (County, City, School Districts, Community College)

Taxpayers need a change on the Board. Here are some reasons:

1. During the current term, MCAD had lost three significant lawsuits. The estimated cost to taxpayers is $1,000,000.00. All three should have been resolved out of court but the District drug them out as long as possible. That led Chief Appraiser Andrew J. Hahn to report "extraordinary" legal expenses of $225,000.00 for the current year.

2. At a recent meeting, held 11/12/13, the board voted to extend the contract of the Chief Appraiser for three years. A provision in the contract provides that he can not be paid any less than his current compensation. There is a good possibility some of the current board members will be replaced in January and they voted to extend the contract not only beyond their term of office but also beyond the term of office of the people taking office in January.
3. The ballot for this election was sent via e-mail to more than 30 people. The e-mail was requested under the Texas Public Information Act. MCAD refused to release the e-mail. MCAD hired an attorney to ask the Attorney General if they could withhold the e-mail. A request was filed with the recipients of the e-mail and they furnished the requested e-mail while MCAD spends taxpayer money on an attorney to block access.

4. There is a statement on the sign-up sheet for the Board Meeting of MCAD. It reads "The McLennan County Appraisal District highly values the input of citizens in making important decisions that affect the District." On the agenda, public comments is item 15, AFTER they have taken care of all the business. Having attended several board meetings, I can assure you "citizen input" is not appreciated and dang sure not solicited.

What can you do?

Attend one of the meetings where they are going to vote. Tell them three strikes on the lawsuits is unacceptable. Tell them you think extending the contract for the Chief Appraiser beyond their own term is unacceptable and voting to extend it beyond the term of office of those to be elected is even worse. Tell them you think transparency is important and committing resources to block transparency is unacceptable. Remind them unchecked power is the path to corruption and they are the check and balance.

November 18th 2013

Robinson School Board Meeting 6:00

Hewitt City Council Meeting 7:00

China Spring School Board Meeting 6:00 Voted 11/28/2013
Connally School Board Meeting 6:30

Lorena City Council Meeting 6:30

November 19th

LaVega School Board Meeting 7:00

Midway School Board Meeting 7:00

How can it be?

How can it be that I have friends who have such diametrically opposed views of a situation that has received more attention than the school massacre.

I ran across a few items I had not seen before and wanted to share.
The first is purported to be the convenience store surveillance video of Trayvon Martin the night he died.

That is a far cry from the picture provided by the main stream media.

Here is another one.

In the same story, in the comments, I ran across this one.

The main thing most people point to when saying Trayvon was murdered is that Zimmerman “followed” Martin. More extreme cases say Zimmerman “stalked” Martin. Check out this:

I ran across the photos in an article here.

There is a lot of information in this video I did not know.

Another brick in the wall

A month after I filed a request for information related to the arrest of CJ Grisham, I received a response from the County Attorney.

I never claimed any disability. This is a special sort of spin inferring the information was available all along and the only reason I did not have the information was because I did not stop by to pick it up. The reality is, the Temple Police Chief, City of Temple and the City Attorney violated the Texas Public Information Act. I personally find it very troubling when the people with the authority to enforce the law ignore the law.

Here is my response:

Here is the before and after photo:

After studying the matter for a while, here is the response from the City Attorney:

If you pursue it long enough, eventually they show their cards. This is a very disturbing e-mail. They begin the communication by hiding behind a misinterpretation the the AG letter. They then reveal that they were in fact in possession of the affidavit. I filed a request with the AG for clarification.

The second part is a denial information released existed. This is a very simple matter. The information was supplied via e-mail to Mr. Watson. This leaves one to wonder if a government document, the e-mail. was destroyed by the department. Doesn’t seem like something like that would be very hard to locate yet according to the County Attorney, it does not exist.

Lastly there is the matter of the public information act signs.

Sec. 552.205.  INFORMING PUBLIC OF BASIC RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES UNDER THIS CHAPTER. (a) An officer for public information shall prominently display a sign in the form prescribed by the attorney general that contains basic information about the rights of a requestor, the responsibilities of a governmental body, and the procedures for inspecting or obtaining a copy of public information under this chapter.  The officer shall display the sign at one or more places in the administrative offices of the governmental body where it is plainly visible to:

(1)  members of the public who request public information in person under this chapter; and

(2)  employees of the governmental body whose duties include receiving or responding to requests under this chapter.

The language is pretty clear. You can check the photos and decide for yourself. It’s kind of like saying you can not file a DWI charge because the next morning the person was no longer drunk.

I saw some correspondence from the Mayor and he was no different from the police or city attorney. The evidence has been submitted for your review. Make your own conclusion.