Confidential to Amir Omar and Laura Maczka: This first paragraph is the only time your names will be mentioned in this blog post, but I have you both in mind as I write the rest.
Recently, I lamented what I considered the recent sorry state of Richardson government. In my opinion, in this council term, we've been treading water, accomplishing little, missing opportunities. I titled the blog post
"Dysfunctional by Design" because I saw the problem as structural, imposed on us by the constraints of Richardson's City Charter and the Texas Open Meetings Act. I ended on a pessimistic note, saying "I'm thrashing around here. I don't have the solution."
Well, thrash long enough and sometimes you break free from the constraints holding you down. John Marshall, Tom Craddick and the Texas State PTA provide three examples of how things can get done even in the face of structural constraints. One example is lauded by history, one reviled, one trivial, but all show what can be accomplished if you take the initiative to do something.
After the jump, what a Richardson mayor can learn from history.