Government Transparency

I believe strongly in the right of the people to know what is happening in their government. The concept of a representative republic rests on this. The Texas Open Meetings Act was enacted expressly to make sure of this.  But I want to go a little further. For example; the Hurst budget is published online but it is still hard to figure out what is going on. I will push to have a historical summary added, with all revenues, and all expenditure totals lumped together, then broken out by source and vendor. I want to make the budget understandable to anyone who can balance a checkbook.  Then the citizens of Hurst will be able to make an informed decision about the future and expenditures of our city.

Business Innovation

The city of Hurst has, over the years, created a maze of rules, regulations, and zoning requirements that stifle business innovation and add untold amounts of red tape to the cost of doing business. Entire categories of businesses have simply been zoned out of existence but procedures still exist in the code for these nonexistent business models. Large corporations, like the ones at Northeast Mall, and the big box stores like Walmart, Target, etc. have the resources and employees to deal with these requirements, but small entrepreneurs just do not. In other words, Mom and Pop have mostly been squeezed out. And that's a shame, because it's the small businesses, the ones more likely to be owned and operated by actual residents of a city that give a town its flavor and distinction. As Mayor, I will work for changes that will make it easier for business, in particular small businesses, to survive and thrive in Hurst.

2nd Amendment, Gun Rights

If I become mayor I will NOT make common purpose with gun grabber organizations. I believe in the 2nd Amendment. I think it is one of the reasons America has never been successfully invaded by a foreign power. An armed populace is a hedge against invasion, tyranny, crazies, or nowadays terrorism. I think that everyone should carry a gun, know how to use it, and be willing to use it should the need arise. I think it is impossible to predict a person's mental state and that it would be a logistically unworkable violation of constitutional rights to lock someone up just because they might obtain a gun and shoot somebody. But I know for sure if most people carried a gun and were willing to use it, the damage done by armed crazies, religious or otherwise, would be more limited. First because I believe most crazies retain a sense of self preservation, so some of them would not start something that would result in their own sure demise, especially if they knew they would not be allowed to do much damage. Second because someone who began shooting people would be more quickly dealt with if their intended victims, preferably all, were armed. Mayor Ward became a member of the inaccurately named Mayors Against Illegal Guns soon after he was elected Mayor of Hurst. MAIG is the brainchild of New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg. It is an anti-gun, anti 2nd Amendment organization dedicated to dis-arming the American citizen. Its latest incarnation is Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. If this outfit had its way we would all be disarmed and be at the mercy of criminals, tyrants, and crazies.

Anonymous Cheers and Jeers for Hurst and Tarrant County 2016

This page is set up for anonymous postings about anything that bothers you, or anything that pleases you about Hurst and Tarrant County. If you choose not to remain anonymous, remember these comments can be seen by anyone who looks.  Robo-comments, non-Tarrant County topics, inappropriate language and sales pitches will be deleted.  

Thanks, Joel Downs

Individual Rights

"The government which governs least, governs best because its people discipline themselves." ... Thomas Jefferson.

Whether or not a decision is an individual right, or something the government should be involved in,  lies in the answer to the question; "Who will suffer harm if this decision turns out to be bad, the person making it, or the people of the community?" If the harm will only befall the decision maker, it is their right to choose and no one else's business. If the harm will come to another individual or group, the community has a right to interfere with the individual's decision and can insert itself, through the government into the decision making of that individual.

Everywhere you look nowadays, local governments are trying to make decisions for citizens that should be the choice of the individual, not the government. 

Some of these attempts are just plain silly but they do it anyway. New York City, for example, tried to curb obesity by limiting the size of the sugary drinks people could purchase, but they didn't put a limit on the number of drinks a person could buy, or the number of refills. This was later overturned in court but the fact that the city government thought it had the authority to do it does not bode well for individual rights.

Some of these attempt at limiting rights may make us laugh but they still set a dangerous precedent simply by their existence and by the fact that local governments consider these things to be their business, in any way at all.

I do not favor legislating social niceties or meddling with personal choice except when it affects the rights and lives of others. If I am elected mayor, I will look out for your individual rights.

Red Light Camera Reform

I oppose Red Light Cameras. They will be up for renewal in the next mayoral term and if I am Mayor I will make the case that it's a bad deal for our city, time to NOT renew the contract and close down the red light camera program in Hurst.

Besides making ordinary citizens see red because nearly all of it is an unyielding and arbitrary enforcement of the Right-Turn-on-Red traffic rule (Front wheels have to completely stop rolling - car bumper cannot be over the white line - etc.), there is no way to enforce collection of fines in Tarrant County because the county tax collector will not cooperate, this knowledge is slowly percolating through the population and more people are not paying. There have even been years in which we have paid out more to the red light vendor than our income from fines. Ron Wright and the County Commissioners are firmly against red light cameras so this will not be changing.

If Red Light Cameras were used to catch and punish the people who blow right through red light intersections endangering other drivers as well as themselves I wouldn't oppose it so much, but that wouldn't be practical because so few people actually commit that crime and enforcing it with that technology would be too expensive. As it stands now it's just a way to enrich the Red Light Vendor industry with money from innocent people.

Red light cameras are simply an unjust, immoral, impractical, unwanted, embarrassing and financially deficient scam for our city to be involved in. It's time for them to go!

Fiscal Responsibility

Hurst Obligation Bonds  1977-2014 (Click to enlarge)

Up until 1994 we borrowed very little. After that, things changed. Little is known as to why the decision was made to begin borrowing. But the fact is, it began and it hasn't stopped. However, we can slow down and eventually halt it. The goal is to arrive at an equilibrium. A financial situation where in we spend a little bit less than we take in. We put aside the surplus in a fund for the future. Plan on maintenance, obsolescence, and replacement. If we have to borrow, we borrow short term because the payback is much smaller.

As of 2014, the city of Hurst, us taxpayers, issued Obligation Bonds for $143.3 million dollars. As of now, we will pay back a total of $200.6 million dollars. This means we will pay back $1.40 for every one of those borrowed dollars. Looking at it another way we could have spent $57.3 million more dollars on things we want only we wouldn't have had them as soon. (The borrowed amount is known, the payback is estimated. Could be more, probably not less.)

It would be a $200.6 million payback if we stopped borrowing today. But we cannot stop borrowing today because we have made commitments to purchase goods and services in the future. This is why I use the phrase “…slow down and eventually stop”.

Don’t get me wrong. We have, and will have, a lot of stuff ; large, pretty buildings, a nice library that has been remodeled 5 times, newly built fire stations, a new police station , swimming pools, workout centers, senior centers, tennis courts, many parks big and small, channelized (concrete sided) creeks and street drainage that makes us a regional model of flood control, and a sound, efficient city infrastructure (streets, sewer, water, etc.), plus the workforce to operate and maintain it all.

But I believe we could still have all that we have now, only one or two years in the future, by delaying some purchases until we had the money on hand, stretching out the construction timelines to more closely match our revenue stream, issuing only short term bonds, and never issuing long term bonds because they require the biggest payback.

Call me old fashioned but I believe debt should be kept to a minimum just to get out of paying the interest. Paying interest is simply throwing money in the trash in most cases.