Artist: John Trumbull.
On March 27, 2025, the Richardson Charter Review Commission continued their review of the Richardson Charter, covering Articles 12 (Franchises), 13 (Ordinances), and 19 (Effective Date).
(Still no video by the City to link you to. By now, you know the story. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants," but the Richardson City Council is fine with darkness; not only no live video feed, but no official video record of the Charter Review Commission at all. Politicians seem to have an inherent fear of sunlight.)
These articles of the Charter probably require a legal background to fully understand. Like, what is a "franchise" anyway? And while the idea of an "ordinance" seems pretty straightforward, the details of, for example, "authentication, recordation, and publication" are inside baseball that will bore an average human. Being an average human, I haven't had the attention span needed to form opinions regarding these matters. It was a happy coincidence that I was out of town last week and couldn't attend the meeting. So if you read this far hoping for my take on what happened, you came to the wrong place (this time). I recommend reading Justin Neth's most excellent recap ("Richardson Charter Review Commission Meeting March 27th, 2025"), which is what I did.
Justin Neth himself was the only public speaker, asking "if ordinances should be required to have a final version published in a consent agenda before being voted on." I would think the answer to this is yes, d'oh.
According to Neth, "Atty Smith responds to my question about publishing final ordinance language in an agenda document before voting on it. He concludes that restricting a city's ability to exercise the method we see as best is inadvisable to include in the charter. (We also had a chance to speak after the meeting and this seems more like a Council policy direction than a charter amendment item.)"
I have some questions and opinions:
- Does this mean that ordinances are sometimes adopted without the final language being spelled out, in writing, for the Council? Personally, I can't imagine any situation where it's wise to give final approval of something that's not in writing.
- Did Atty Smith spell out an example of such a situation? If not, why even give the Council the option to do it loosely like that?
- Many things *can* be done by the Council on its own, but if the Council does *not* do it, then the people reserve the right to require by Charter that the Council do it a certain way. This is one of them imo.
Whew! That's 451 words to report on a meeting that I missed. Who knows how long this post would have been if I had been there?
"Franchise, ordinance,
words tangled in legal webs,
who understands them?"
—h/t ChatGPT
3 comments:
Remember The Dukes of Hazzard? Richardson’s got its own Boss Hogg….a power player hiding in plain sight, with a building that even nods to his influence. His crew runs City Hall like a private club, no video records, no transparency, just backroom deals that keep the public in the dark. But government should work for the people, not for a select few. It’s time to bring accountability to Richardson and shine a light on the decisions being made behind closed doors on behalf of us, the people.
Thank you Mark Steger and Justin Neth for your excellent reporting! I know you both lean toward Amir Omar, and that’s fine by me. Amir’s a solid guy, and while I intend to win, I respect the work he’s put in. At the end of the day, transparency and accountability matter more than politics.
Alan North, thanks for the generous feedback.
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