Refuse the Juice

New Tax Problems For Ness - She Lied to the Media!

A quick search of the El Paso County website yielded some more disturbing news about Lyda Ness tax problems.  It's seems as recently as April 8th of this year she had her property liened again!

Check out the new document - Download Ness 2008 Tax

We know from my previous post (previous post HERE) that Ness failed to pay taxes in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.  Now you can add 2008 to that list and the hammer fell while Ness was telling everyone that her tax problems were of the past and had been resolved.  Apparently the problems weren't in the past and they hadn't been resolved. 

On 8/21/2006 she was notified of her tax problems - that was her first "Date of Assessment" filed by the IRS (document Download Tax3).  If she fired her accountant, as she claims to have done, then the failure to file her taxes or file them incorrectly should have stopped then.  However, this newest document proves she either didn't fire her accountant after she was notified of her tax problems, or that there was never any accountant to fire - it was her doing.  Either way - she let her taxes continue to be filed incorrectly, or failed to pay them all together, as many as two years after she was first notified there was a problem.

If I was a reporter who asked Lyda Ness about her tax problems and she told me "I have worked them out," I would be pissed off.  If you are that reporter - YOU WERE LIED TO.   Ness knew beginning on 7/19/2010 she wasn't square in any way with the IRS.  On 4/8/2011 her property was liened again - approximately a month before the election. Ness knows she was in trouble and any attempt to claim differently would have been a lie. The IRS does not place a lien on your residence in order to let you know that things are hunky dory and they're happy with the way you are carrying on about your paying of taxes.

Just so those of you in the media have this straight... If you asked Ness the question "how is your tax situation?" And she didn't answer it with, "my situation is bad, so bad in fact that the IRS just put another lien on my house April 8th of this year, and I owe more than $200,000 now," then she lied to your face.  She made an ass out of you. 

If you want to know why Lilly isn't giving you any quotes, it's probably because you've gone out of your way to smash Lilly in the head with frivolous ethics complaints based on emails sent from people not named Ann Lilly to people not named Ann Lilly.  Hell, you splashed Lilly's name all over the headlines using allegations of wrongdoing that came from an anonymous source you were not given access to.  But, when given proper documentation, the proverbial "smoking gun," the media let Ness off with a simple "it's my accountant's fault."  What a bunch of crap. Again, no wonder Lilly won't speak - the media has not examined one allegation made against Ness even though there's a paper trail to prove it all.

And...

If Ness told youpersonally that her tax problems are old news - she lied and I hope this is your wake up call.  She lied to your face and you expect her to carry your water on the issues when she's elected?  If she will lie to you about something you can easily look up at the courthouse, what will she lie to you about that can't be readily proven in minutes?  Would she lie about being in a developers pocket? 

And Then it Ended - The Ness Mess Goes Public

Today's article in the paper about Ness' failed complaint against Lilly and her own problems with the TEC was the last thing she needed going into the long weekend before early voting starts.  The article can be described as nothing less than a complete thrashing of Ness and it ends any momentum she had.

That article comes a day after the whispers around Kern say that Ness hired ex-cons to go behind Lilly and pull her door knockers off of the doors she left them hanging on.  Several residents were quite scared to see young men dashing up to their door, taking the flyer and then heading off.  Needless to say, the talk in Kern isn't positive for Ness.

Ness' attempts at sabotaging Lilly in the media since election day have missed their mark.  As I've written here before, Ness' attempts to define Lilly have only painted Lilly as the candidate whose views best fit the majority of voters in District 1. 

Yesterday's "protest" at City Hall was a complete disaster and waste of time with no media coverage coming from it.

The wheels are coming off for Ness. There's no other way to describe what's happening here.

The worst part for Ness in today's article is that she once again blames someone else for her troubles.  It seems that she's just a victim of being surrounded by bad accountants, bad campaign treasurers and bad volunteers.  She never takes the blame for anything and the readers of the El Paso Times story see that.  Nobody likes someone who can't own their mistakes in life.  Look at my parents - they have never lied and said I wasn't theirs.  That's owning your mistakes. 

Her followers are desparately trying to flood the comments sections of blogs and the newspaper's "Topix" section with mean-spirited lies about Lilly's age and criminal history (there is none) and it's making Lyda look worse.  You don't pick on the ederly when the ederly are the most likely voters.

I do need to admit when I'm wrong real quick - Jaime Abeytia has not been blogging about this race since returning to the blogosphere earlier this week.  I said would be and I was wrong.  I guess even he has had enough of Lyda's lies.  To Jaime - I'm sorry for saying you would be blogging on behalf of Lyda now that you have returned to blogging.   I thought your piece on Congressman Reyes was the ultimate ass kiss in print for a guy who does anything but represent El Paso.  I'm sure you will get a nice White House Christmas ornament for your efforts from our friend Vince Perez.  I happen to have picture of my dad standing next to a helicopter in the Nam too, does this allow my father to suffer no recourse for letting 700,000 people down on a daily basis?  Remember, service to our country is not a permission slip for being a bad representative for your community. 

UPDATE!!! While writing this Jaime did finally produce a very forced, very late to the game blog post about Lilly and the domestic partner benefits issue. You can tell he was told to put something up by Ness because you can't read where he put his heart into the post.  Hell, he chastises Lilly for having the exact same position as his hero (and mine) Representative Holguin on the issue.  Holguin has said on many occasions that he personally supports gay benefits, but respects the will of the voter of his own opinion.  That's exactly what Lilly said.  So where's the mean blog post calling Holguin names?  My apology is taken back with many regrets.   Poor Jaime - I wish he'd go back to being the old Jaime we all know and love (FYI that's after he destroyed Norma and before he became under Ness' spell). 

Back on topic....

Everything Lyda has planned is now backfiring on her.  I would not be surprised at all right now if her failure to pay taxes comes bubbling back up to the surface before the polls open. 

So, let me tell you how this is going to go down from here.  

Step 1:  Ness is going to have a Level 3 meltdown on the El Paso Times reporter who wrote the piece and her bosses.  It will ensure that she no longer has their ear on any issue going forward. Hell, she may be banned from the building before the end of the day.  Her temper and generally hateful demeanor will shine brightly in her future relations with the paper and I couldn't be happier for the both of them.

Step 2:  Because Ness finally got some bad press after months of the media ignoring her incredibly checkered past, she's going to have a mental breakdown. And it's going to happen all out in the open where we can enjoy it.  You don't go on the run of impossibly good luck with the media that Ness has had and not completely lose your shit when it all of a sudden stops.  She will start with conspiracy theories about Lilly owning the media in town and how she was set up by the El Paso illuminati who secretly control the entire world from the men's grill at El Paso Country Club.  Her meltdown will end with her standing outside my house  huming an Alanis Morissette tune with a  pistol, a can of gas and a lighter .  Just kidding... I think.

Step 3: She moves to Southern California to get away from her problems here and starts a new life.  We become pen pals and work through our issues via hand written letters over the course of a few years. Then we stage a reunion on the Montell Williams show and find out that we are actually brother and sister separated by an unethical orphanage run by transgendered Nuns with ties to the Russian mafia.  We then sign a big reality TV series deal where our families move into a house near the ocean and we all work in a t-shirt shop during the day and party all night.  

Step 4:  Disregard Step 3 and realize that this thing stops at Step 2.  I just don't like lists with only two bullet points.   I'm sorry if some of you were horrified by Step 3.  And I'm a little worried about those of you who didn't think to laugh at Step 3 and asked "I wonder what channel the show will be on?"

I hope you have a good day and a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Ps. -  If I'm found dead this weekend, you know where to start looking. 

Pps. - I heard that Ness really pissed off the legal community when she declared to the media that only guilty people hire lawyers.  She was referring to Lilly's attorney making an appearance on her behalf at what amounted to be a hearing on how Ness would pursue her own criminal investigation of Lilly using city resources.  The comment invoked a response from one local well known attorney who asked me "what the hell does that say about her clients?"  Ness broke an unwritten rule in the legal community by attacking the trade and its merit. 

Ppps. - She still has the best eyebrows in the business! 

Pppps. -  I hear the police department is running their homicide detectives in 24 hours shifts investigating Ness' allegation that Lilly used $.05 worth of city paper to make a copy of a donor list.  I also heard that Greta VanSusteren has been dispatched to El Paso to cover the evolving case.  Nancy Grace was seen dining at Cafe Central and bugging the waiters for tips on where the criminal mastermind Lilly might have her base of operations.  Both VanSusteren and Grace are said to have compared the $.05 alleged theft at city hall to their biggest cases such as the Natalie Holloway disapearance and the murder of Caylee Anthony.  

Ppppps. - One source told me that several movie production companies are already writing scripts based on the crime and Meryl Streep has been rumored to play the part of Representative Lilly and James Taylor as Mayor Cook.  Unfortunately the production companies have all indicated they will shoot the project in San Antonio citing that the city is a "more authentic, believable border town than El Paso..." and that their "Mexicans look more Mexican in San Antonio."  George Lopez has told insiders that he's "ready to play whoever the lead brown guy is." 

Protest Blocks Handicap Parking

As I was leaving city hall right now I walked by Ness' meager protest at city hall. They didn't even notice me!
When I got to my truck a lady asked me where more handicap parking might be located. It turns out the Ness and 10 of her save the valley supporters were blocking the handicap parking in the name of public protest... and campaigning. There are people waving signs calling for the election of Ness.

I have pictures coming later.

Lyda Ness Ethics Complaint Denied-Not Accepted- Laughed at by All

Unlike the local media who has forgotten to do what is called a "follow up story," I called Representative Ann Lilly's attorney, Mark Walker, about the Texas Ethics Complaint that was filed by Lyda Ness-Garcia.  Low and behold her had a response for me. 

He created a document that tells the story of how all of this went down.  I think the quote from his write-up that sums up the idiocy of Ness is:

 Later in the afternoon of May 18, in response to an inquiry of a response date for a reply to the complaint, a lawyer with the TEC called and said that none was due, because the complaint was not accepted and did not allege a violation.

Yes my friends - Ness failed to actually file a complaint that was usable in any way, shape or form to the TEC.  There's a reason you haven't seen the complaint - it was all nonsense thrown together at the last minute in order to do a photo-op in front of the press.  The press never even asked to see the complaint or the emails.   Ness failed to allege that Lilly did anything wrong... wow.  So in Ness' own opinion, Lilly did nothing wrong and she believes that so thoroughly that she sent a note to the TEC to confirm it!

I would suggest the news outlets in town read this document carefully and then start crafting apologies to Mrs. Lilly.  They could learn a little about how these things work by asking some questions.

If you want your media to act more responsibly when reporting on these issue in the future, make sure you send a link to my blog to them and ask them why they got scooped by an idiot blogger sitting in his mom's basement eating Funions and playing video games. 

You can read the document by click this ---> Download TEC_Complaint_Press_Release_3453487_1[1].

Or you can read it below where I cut and pasted it into the body of this blog.  I'm sure Mark Walker would love to talk to anyone in the media who might inquire about Ness' possible TEC fine for submitting a frivolous complaint.  Call him at (915) 541-9322.  All of you ignored his last press release, maybe you won't ignore this one!

This is good reading and we'll get more into my thoughts later.

 For Release:

 

Re:      Lyda Ness-Garcia Complaint to the Texas Ethics Commission:  Whether the Complaint was Frivolous. 

 

            The Texas Ethics Commission has rejected Candidate Lyda Ness-Garcia’s complaint against Ann Morgan Lilly to the Texas Ethics Commission, (“TEC”), citing requirements meant to guarantee fairness and due process to all persons involved.  The following is an analysis of the complaint, and whether, under the law and the facts, the complaint was frivolous, for which Ann Morgan Lilly may seek compensation from Ms. Lyda Ness-Garcia.  In short, the complaint was probably frivolous, to be determined by the Texas Ethics Commission. 

 

1. I.                   The Complainant.

 

            According to the State Bar of Texas (“SBOT”), Ms. Lyda Ness-Garcia (“LNG”) is a May 1997 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, a perennial top-15 national law school, and was licensed in April, 1998, SBN 90001279.  The SBOT website also indicates that she is licensed in the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania.  The D.C. Bar website shows “Lyda A. Ness” as an inactive member, who was licensed in April, 2000.    The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania shows Ms. Lyda A. Ness, No. 82282, as an inactive member of the Pennsylvania Bar, having been originally licensed in April 1999.  Ms. Ness-Garcia does not appear to be currently licensed in either D.C. or Pennsylvania, contrary to her information published online with the SBOT. 

 

Some of Ms. Ness-Garcia’s online biographies indicate that she attended the nationally-ranked University of Michigan as an undergraduate in the English department, and at some point worked as an assistant El Paso County Attorney.  Her LinkedIn page shows that she attended Michigan until 1992, but does not explain what she did before obtaining her law degree six years later.  That page also indicated that she has been a solo practitioner since March 2000.  The LinkedIn page indicates that she claims to practice in family law, immigration, and criminal law. 

 

We have not found any resumes or biographies of Ms. Ness-Garcia that show her chronological history, or any other employment history.  Ms. Ness-Garcia has been licensed to practice law in Texas for 13 years.  A brief review of the El Paso County records reflects that she has appeared as counsel in a variety of family and criminal cases, at least. 

 

The conclusion, based on the record, is that Ms. Ness-Garcia is sufficiently trained and experienced to know the need to read and understand the relevant law, codes, and rules, prior to taking actions.

 

1. II.                The Complaint.
   1. A.    Ms. Ness-Garcia Sought Publicity Prior to Filing Complaint.

Ms. Ness-Garcia filed with the TEC her sworn complaint on Friday, May 13.  Prior to filing the complaint, Ms. Ness-Garcia made a concerted effort to advise the press and give them a preview of her allegations, literally on the eve of the municipal election.  On Wednesday afternoon, May 12, Cindy Ramirez, El Paso Times reporter, Maria Garcia, of KVIA, Adrienne Alvarez of KTSM and KDBC, and another reporter all called Ms. Lilly to say that LNG called them and told them that she had filed an ethics complaint with the TEC, along with a police complaint.  On Friday, May 13, Ms. Lilly received more calls from the media, including follow-up calls from Ms. Alvarez, along with Mr. Camarena with Telemundo, asking for comment after they were contacted by Ms. Ness-Garcia.  Several members of print and television press advised that they were contacted by LNG and told that she was going to or had filed an ethics complaint, apparently before the complaint was filed with TEC.  Ms. Ness-Garcia’s media blitz was rewarded by print and television news coverage of her allegations against Ms. Lilly, on the eve of the election.

            We did not see a copy of the complaint until we received it via e-mail from TEC late Wednesday morning, May 18.  Later in the afternoon of May 18, in response to an inquiry of a response date for a reply to the complaint, a lawyer with the TEC called and said that none was due, because the complaint was not accepted and did not allege a violation.  We have not seen a copy of any police report, but we anticipate that it would be based on the same grounds as the ethics complaint.

            We have no record that any member of the press did any independent investigation, or conferred with counsel, or even called the TEC about whether the complaint was legal, prior to publishing the subject reports.

            We also find no record of Ms. Ness-Garcia calling lawyers with the TEC to determine whether the complaints she wished to make were proper or legal, prior to filing the complaint, even though the TEC lawyers are available to answer all such questions.

1. B.     The Complaint is Sworn, and Alleged on “Personal Knowledge.”

The TEC complaint form permits a complainant to verify the complaint based either on personal knowledge (“direct personal knowledge”)[1], or upon information and belief.  An affidavit based upon information and belief would be executed “if the acts alleged are not within your direct personal knowledge, but are based on reasonable belief.”[2]  Ms. Ness-Garcia chose to sign the affidavit based on personal knowledge.

 

 

1. C.    Complainant Ness-Garcia Alleged That E-Mails Violated Tex. Elec. Code 255.003.

In her complaint, Ms. Ness-Garcia specifically alleged that Ms. Lilly violated Section 255.003 of the Texas Election Code, claiming that “[c]urrent city representative (sic) Ann Morgan Lilly has been utilizing city resources, staff & equipment for fundraising purposes.”  In support of that allegation, Ms. Ness-Garcia attached to the complaint some 25 documents, all e-mails, 13 of which dated to 2006 and 2007[3], and none of which were authored by Ms. Lilly.  Two e-mails were dated in February 2009, and related to El Paso Days events in Austin.  One was dated in July 2009, with no text, another City Information Services e-mail in October, 2010, reminding all City employees of “the rules and regulations pertaining to participation in the political process.”  The others included duplicates of the same e-mails in 2011, and one included a staff response that City Representative Lilly would attend an Upper Valley forum, in response to an e-mail invitation.  In none of the e-mails did Ms. Lilly solicit any campaign donations or engage in any fundraising.  In support of her allegations, Ms. Ness-Garcia relied only upon e-mails between other persons, who sent copies to e-mail accounts of one of the six persons subject to the PIA request.  She provided no other affidavits, statements, or records.  Ms. Ness-Garcia was not an author of, nor a participant to, any of the subject e-mails, and had no personal knowledge of the events or communications.

1. As a Matter of Law, E-Mails Cannot Constitute a Violation of Section 255.003.    

As a Texas lawyer with over ten years of experience, Ms. Ness-Garcia should be fully aware of procedural rules and the general rule that the lawyer should not make frivolous allegations.  The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct specifically prohibit the making of frivolous claims.  Tex. R. Disc. P. 3.01.[4]  “A filing or assertion is frivolous if it is made primarily for the purpose of harassing or maliciously injuring a person.  It also is frivolous if the lawyer is unable either to make a good faith argument that the action taken is consistent with existing law or that it may be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.” Id., comment 2.  To avoid a finding that a claim lacks merit or is frivolous, a lawyer should investigate and research the claim before filing it.

            The statute that Ms. Ness-Garcia claims that Ms. Lilly violated, Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §255.003 (Vernon Supp. 2010) prohibits the “Unlawful Use of Public Funds for Political Advertising.”  In order to determine whether an act the subject of an ethics complaint constitutes “political advertising,” the complainant must look to Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §251.001(16), which does not include e-mails as part of the definition.  Further, in the Texas Ethics Commissions rules (available online), the definition of “political advertising” “…does not include a communication made by e-mail.”   Tex. Ethics Comm’n R. 20.1(16)(B).   Based on the only statute that Ms. Ness-Garcia claims was violated, there exists no possible violation, based on the complainant’s complete reliance on e-mails as the basis for the complaint.  A review of the statutes, the definitions, and the Commission Rules, all of which are equally available to the complainant, would have revealed that there existed no basis under the law to file the complaint, prior to filing the complaint.

1. E.     The Complaint Also Improperly Alleges Conduct the Texas Ethics Commission Cannot Consider, Based on Limitations.

            Additionally, regardless of whether the complaints were based on e-mails, most of the communications of which Ms. Ness-Garcia complained were more than two years old, and could not have formed the basis of complaint because any complaints were barred by limitations.  The Texas Ethics Commission may not consider an allegation that is outside the applicable statute of limitations.  The alleged violation, an allegation that an officer of a political subdivision “knowingly spent or authorized the spending of public funds for political advertising,”[5]would be governed by a two-year statute of limitations,[6]and could not be considered under Commission Rule 12.5 after the expiration of limitations. 

1. F.     The Complaint Alleges Conduct the Texas Ethics Commission Cannot Consider.

            Similarly, an allegation of “Abuse of Official Capacity” under Tex. Penal Code §39.02 permits the finding of an offense only if the public servant, “with intent to obtain a benefit or with intent to harm or defraud another, intentionally or knowingly…misuses government property….”[7]  If the value of the thing misused, say the equivalent of a photocopy, is less than $20, an offense would be classified as a Class C misdemeanor, for which the two-year statute of limitations applies.  The Texas Ethics Commission would not consider such an allegation, as it is outside the jurisdiction of the TEC.  Ms. Lilly did not misuse any government property, and committed no offense.  But such an allegation, both to the Texas Ethics Commission and to the El Paso Police Department, triggers significant concern to any respondent.  Ms. Ness-Garcia knew or should have known that such complaint should not have been made to the Texas Ethics Commission.

            Now that we have the complaint and the evidence on which Ms. Ness-Garcia based her complaint, it is abundantly clear that there existed no basis in law or fact for the complaint to the Texas Ethics Commission.

1. III.             May a Complaint Be Filed With The Texas Ethics Commission That Ms. Ness-Garcia’s Complaint Was Frivolous, In Order to Recover Costs?

            A very strong argument can be made for filing a complaint against Ms. Ness-Garcia to recover costs. 

            A respondent to a complaint may seek the imposition of a civil penalty imposed by the Texas Ethics Commission of not more than $10,000.[8]  The enabling statute sets forth the factors to consider in assessing sanctions.[9]The Government Code also makes “a person who files a frivolous complaint … civilly liable to the respondent in an amount equal to the greater of $10,000 or the amount of actual damages incurred by the respondent, including court costs and attorney fees.”[10]  In this instance, the damages will greatly exceed $10,000.

            How does the Texas Ethics commission determine whether the complaint was frivolous under the statute and rules?  The Commission Rules provide:

(b) In deciding if a complaint is frivolous, the commission will be guided by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 13, and interpretations of that rule, and may also consider:

(1) the timing of the complaint with respect to when the facts supporting the alleged violation became known or should have become known to the complainant, and with respect to the date of any pending election in which the respondent is a candidate or is involved with a candidacy, if any;

(2) the nature and type of any publicity surrounding the filing of the complaint, and the degree of participation by the complainant in publicizing the fact that a complaint was filed with the commission;

(3) the existence and nature of any relationship between the respondent and the complainant before the complaint was filed;

(4) if respondent is a candidate for election to office, the existence and nature of any relationship between the complainant and any candidate or group opposing the respondent;

(5) any evidence that the complainant knew or reasonably should have known that the allegations in the complaint were groundless; and

(6) any evidence of the complainant’s motives in filing the complaint

Tex. Ethics Comm’n R. 12.35(b).

            We have already discussed the proximity of the complaint to the municipal election (factor 1), the pre-filing publicity (factor 2), the fact that the complainant is a candidate opposing the respondent (factor 4), and the evidence that the complainant knew or reasonably should have known that the allegations in the complaint were groundless (factor 5).  Further evidence is abundant that Ms. Ness-Garcia has shown hostility and anger toward Ms. Lilly to the public and televisions news, particularly after the City Council hearing on her request to waive any costs for production of records pursuant to her Public Information Act request (factor 3).  In this regard, please refer to the video interviews of Ms. Ness-Garcia, especially on KVIA, in which she also attacks Ms. Lilly for seeking counsel, surprisingly stating that “the only reason she (Ms. Lilly) had a personal attorney is if she has something to hide.” Considering Ms. Ness-Garcia’s professional training and law practice, such comment is meant to be inflammatory and derogatory, and further evidence of the complainant’s animas toward Ms. Lilly.[11]Finally, Ms. Ness-Garcia falsely swore to the complaint, alleging that she had personal knowledge of all the events and communications, even though all the evidence clearly establishes that she did not have any personal knowledge.

There is more than sufficient evidence on all five factors considered by the Commission to determine whether the complaint was frivolous, and all evidence shows that the motivation for the complaint was a hostile opposing candidate’s desire to seek pre-election publicity, immediately before the election and without time for the respondent candidate/officeholder to investigate and respond, in order to persuade voters to cast their ballots for her.  These are all the requirements for a finding that Ms. Ness-Garcia’s complaint to the Texas Ethics Commission was frivolous, groundless, and brought in bad faith and for purposes of harassment.

           

 

---

[1]TEC Complaint, § VI.

[2]TEC Complaint §VII.

[3]Ms. Ness-Garcia’s Public Information Act (“PIA”) request sought the production of documents between July 1, 2005, and the date of request, April 14, 2011, a period of five years, eight and one-half months.

[4] “A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless the lawyer reasonably believes that there is a basis for doing so that is not frivolous.”

[5]Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §255.003(a).

[6]Tex. Code Crim. P. Art. 12.2.

[7] Tex. Penal Code §39.02(a)(2).

[8] Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. §571.176(a).

[9] Factors considered for assessment of sanctions include:

   (1) the seriousness of the violation, including the nature, circumstances, consequences, extent, and gravity of the violation;

   (2) the history and extent of previous violations;

   (3) the demonstrated good faith of the violator, including actions taken to rectify the consequences of the violation;

   (4) the penalty necessary to deter future violations; and

   (5) any other matters that justice may require.

Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. §571.177.

 

[10] Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. §571.176(b)

[11]Does Ms. Ness-Garcia imply that all clients who come to see her are guilty or have done something wrong?  The presumption of innocence is a fundamental tenet of American law, and one of the basic concepts of a free society for which many Americans have fought and died for many years.  The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution speaks to the right to counsel, which applies regardless of race, creed, color, or station in life. Due process of law, as the Texas Ethics Commission duly notes, is a fundamental concern.

 

The Two El Paso Times Stories Today

The first story about City Manager form of government was quite boring as it was written.  Had the reporter asked around, she would have found that Ness and Mejia lied right through their teeth about wanting to keep city manager form of government.

Bother Mejia and Ness are bought and paid for by certain developers and builders who hate Joyce Wilson and hate city manager form of government.  They have demanded that Mejia and Ness pledge to put city manager form of government on the next charter amendment ballot election.  If the measure is put to the voters on a charter amendment vote, it will pass and we will go back to having our mayor and his biggest donors directly running the day to day operations at the city to include handing city contracts out directly to his friends and donors.

Mejia and Ness have both told as many people as they can that they will fire Joyce Wilson and everyone else in management at city hall.  Mejia wants to fire Wilson because I'm sure she was behind the many instances where Mejia had to have her hand slapped for being a worthless employee. 

Nessjust doesn't like people she can't boss around.  Ness knows Wilson is smarter, faster and more cunning than she is. 

So there's the real truth about those two.  They won't say they're going to fire the city manager because they know that the long-time city employees will work to make sure they aren't elected.  Those city employees remember what it was like to see pink slips go flying every two years when a new mayor came in.  They may not love Joyce Wilson, but they do love job security.  Believe me - if you elected me mayor and we didn't have city manager form of government, I'd fire 75 percent of the workforce (minus police fire and ambulance) on day one.  On day two I'd have the remaining 25 percent sell every single thing that could be sold of city property.  On day three I would fire the remaining 25 percent and hire private sector vendors to run the city.  Day four I'd sell city hall.  Day five I'd rest.  We could go through a lot of days here, but you get what I mean.  I'd be an awesome mayor.

------------------------

The Redd Road issue isn't that big.  There aren't but about two dozen people involved with "Save the Valley" and in all the years they've been around they've yet to elect a candidate, recall a candidate or even turn in a petition with anywhere near the required amount of signatures.  They're loud, but they aren't strong.

Ness only supports them because they hate Lilly.  It's not like Ness gave a damn about Redd road before she jumped into the race.  The Save the Valley folks tend to support anyone but Lilly.  Their support is not special, nor is it effective in generating votes. However, it's something and God knows Ness doesn't have a lot of support out there. 

The bottom line fact is that if the road isn't cut through, and a whole 12 people displaced, developers will pack in roughly one thousand starter homes in the space. 

And let's talk about that real quickly - the whole "12 people will lose their homes" BS claim.  Ness says that.  Save the Valley says that, but nobody can show me exactly how they come up with that number. 

I also think it's hilarious that nobody seems to give a damn about kicking thousands of Lower Valley and Central residents out of their homes whenever it's convenient for the rich folks to do so.   But if you offer to pay one Upper Valley resident ten times the value of their property for the use of a sliver of it, you're a Nazi murderer from hell!  Is there a double standard around here?  I think Representative Holguin would agree with me when I say "YES." 

Even if Ness is elected, she can't get the extension taken off of the plan.  It's done by a vote, not by direction.  It seems that the Save the Valley people don't realize that there is a democratic process in use at City Hall and they need to replace seven other council members to get their way. 

Don't get me wrong- I truly think Cindy "Brady" Ramirez did an excellent job with the article.  She went back to get quotes from Lilly from the last discussion they had on the issue and also stated she had trouble talking to Ness about the issue as well.   She did a great job getting quotes from people in the area and they were genuine... well, other than Becky Schneider who has been described by her neighbors as a "f!$&ing nightmare" to live near.

Any thoughts about what they "might" do about Country Club Road are null and void.  They are designing Country Club right now and will construct it early next year.  After the road is shut down for an entire year you will not hear more than maybe two people complaining about the Redd Road extension.  In fact, there will be cries for it to be fast tracked.  Believe me, my firm constructed the new traffic circle and we know what it's like to shut down Country Club - it won't be pretty. 

The facts that Keisling and others need to get through their thick heads is that they will be dead by the time the road is built.  Their kids will take the land they leave behind and sell it to developers for top dollar and then go on about their lives.  It is in the best interest of the people who will be using the land in the future to have access routes that are well thought out and planned.  You can't stop this from happening. 

You can vote for Ness or Lilly, it doesn't make a difference - Redd Road will be built one way or another.  The article played well to Lilly because most readers believe in anything that means less traffic!  How you could take a stance on an issue that would increase commute times right before a runoff is beyond me... Who is advising this lady? 

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I will tell you that the comments section on the EP Times website has started to really turn against Ness.  She was running roughly 10 to 1 favorable comments before the election and now it's closer to even for both of them.  Not that the commentors reveal the will of the voters, but it does say something about how Ness is wearing on people.

It's All the Crazy-Ness You Can Handle

So I get an email tonight from my Ness campaign insider and it's pure gold.

Ness has been begging every news outlet in town to demand a debate between her and Representative Lilly.  One person described the constant demand as "feverish."  Ness is not making friends with her incessant demands of the media.  Tomorrow she'll be making an ass out of herself while continuing to not make friends.

Ness' campaign sent out an invite for a protest in the parking lot of city hall tomorrow at lunch.  The same woman who filed a complaint (case dismissed by TEC in record time - document download in la manana manana) against her opponent for allegedly campaigning on city property with city resources is going to CAMPAIGN ON CITY PROPERTY USING CITY RESOURCES (parking lot)!

What a moron.  What an idiot.  It doesn't get any dumber than that. Is she even running these ideas by anyone first?

Ness' scheduled campaign event on city property using city resources is an attempt to draw Lilly out for a debate... a debate they've had dozens of times already during the normal campaign cycle.  I'm sure Lilly is done with those debates because Ness' constant lying, dramatic outbursts and flip flopping on the issues makes it impossible for them to be at all productive.  Ness has the uncanny ability to take multiple sides of any issue during a debate and have nobody question it.  Hell, she can not pay $190,000 in payroll taxes and nobody notices either.  By the way - I wonder if her employees realize they didn't get their part of the kitty paid during that time... It's a good question I think someone should ask.

I think Ness sets herself up for an embarrassing moment here.  Not only will she be inconveniencing all the people who use the public parking on a daily basis to conduct business with the city (something she claims she cares about, but does not back that up with this idiotic move), but she'll be almost alone. 

I feel sorry for her.  Ness' constant media deluge is an excuse for not doing any actual campaigning.  She wants to take the easy way out and win the battle of public opinion one newscast at at time instead of one household at a time. 

Negative campaigning does work.  It wouldn't be so commonly used if it wasn't frequently successful.  However, there comes a point that voters realize you're just an asshole and have no real issues other than the personal issues that have led you to be such an asshole.  At some point you have to take a coherent policy position that is not fed to you by a special interest group like Save the Valley.  Where are Ness' "white papers" on her legislative agenda?  There are none.  She's got a bunch of nonsense slapped together without any research to back it up.

One example of exactly how clueless she is about the issues is her comments and literature on Country Club Road.  She claims she wants to widen the road etc...  Well, too late - Ann Lilly saw that project into its design phase, which is taking place right this minute.  By this winter they will bid the project and by this time next year they'll be half way done with the construction.  How the hell can Ness make any promises about a road project that is already under way?  It's sloppy and people will catch her in her lie.

Ness has all the momentum now and will probably walk to victory on this one, but it doesn't change the fact that she's been Theresa Caballero Jr. throughout the whole process.  I'm sure they will make an amazing team. 

I think tomorrow's laughable and poorly thought out protest should be attended by city workers who might use the opportunity to ask Ness why she wants to end the funding of their dependent benefits.  One city council member has been actively working on Ness' behalf because this member wants to put employee benefits on the chopping block roughly one month from now!  With Ness on the council they can end the practice of paying dependent coverage by Jan 1, 2012.  This will save taxpayers literally millions of dollars. 

I just hope Ness is ready to answer some questions about why she thinks it's okay for her to campaign on city property using city resources, but it's not okay for others to do so.  She might also want to answer questions on how her TEC complaint was thrown out faster than any complaint in the history of TEC complaints. 

(to be fair, the TEC did get a good laugh at Ness' complaint and they don't get a lot of light-hearted moments around there from what I understand)

I'd like to say I'll see you at the protest, but I'll probably be working like the rest of us who pay taxes.

Too Much Too Early

The Ness campaign and her supporters have gone all out trying to get the media to attack Lilly before the runoff election.  Today they had two articles placed in the EP Times. 

One of them made Ness look like she's anti-progress and pro-westside rich people getting whatever they want at the cost of others (Rep. Holguin has some interesting, and true, things to say about tihs phenomenon). 

The other story really had no impact due to the many names mentioned in the article. Plus, it's a non-story when everyone interviewed agrees on the issue.  Although, I know for a fact that at least two candidates flat out lied about their intentions for city manager form of government and Joyce Wilson.  Two of them have the bulk of their donations from people who require candidates to pledge to put city manager form of government on the next charter election.   I will expose those two liars later.

Anywho...

So Lilly didn't give them quote - who cares?  Words never spoken can not later be a cause for regret (I tried to sound like a brilliant Chinese prophet when writing that).

The real story for Ness is that her press blitz is about a week too early.  By Friday nobody will remember these stories or the op-ed on Monday.  When the time is right (next week) they'll be out of stuff to talk about in this race and Ness will be forced to actually go campaign instead of making media bombs.  And let's not forget - Ness has some bombs coming her way shortly.  She has a frivolous TEC claim we all get to hear about. 

I guess I could also say that Ness' press blitz has done more to promote Lilly with voters than hurt her.  Ness' and Save the Valley's views are not popular.  No voter liks an unknown quantity and Ness is proving to be all over the map. 

More on the articles themselves later.   

The Truth About the Domestic Partner Benefits Ruling

You aren't hearing the truth about what the judge ruled.  Once again the local media is not interested in examining an issue past a few dramatic sound bites.  Let me answer some questions for you in this post.

Whose fault is it that the retirees and others are going to have their benefits cut off? 

Could this situation have been avoided all to together?

Is there any way to save the retirees' benefits?

All great questions - I'm glad you asked.

First of all, there are three parts to the judge's opinion and really only one is concerned with the affect on retirees and others who once had benefits and now don't.  We will deal withthe one part that is the most important to the majority of the people involved - whether or not the ballot issue meant to screw more than the just the gays.

The judge writes "Once the ordinance passed, the City, however, interpreted the statute to remove health benefit coverage to retirees, elected officials, affiliated service contractors, domestic partners of employees, and certain dependent children, all of whom were previously covered."

That's the crux of the issue and nobody is really picking up where the judge puts the blame for this whole mess.  A mess where he was put in charge of deciphering voter's intent - something he says was the city's job to do first. 

I originally wrote that the city attorneys office had chosen to interpret the ballot language to mean something it clearly didn't mean - to cut off benefits to anyone who wasn't an "employee."  Why did they do this?  Well, they wanted gay benefits and the voters refused to give it to them.  So, they decided that they would drag retirees and others into the mix with them to politicize the matter further and force the public's hand into giving up the fight.  In simpler terms - they took the retirees hostage and put them up as bullet shields. They said "if you shoot me, you gotta shoot them too!"

It was a political move that didn't have to take place - the judge says as much in his admission that the city's interpretation was key here.  City Representatives and city staff knew that they couldn't get gay benefits past the voters, so they pulled a group of people they thought the public would be more sympathetic to into the mess.  They hoped that they could piggyback gay benefits on retiree benefits.  It didn't work.

At any point after the vote was certified, the city attorneys office could have interpreted the voters' intent to mean what we all know it meant - not benefits for the unwed.  However, they didn't and decided to stick with their severely obtuse interpretation hoping to force the issue. The city attorneys office was willing to risk the benefits of retirees and others to make a political point. 

The judge ends up making a ruling he never really had to make in the first place. And the judge makes that point clear with that sentence I quoted from his opinion.. Hell, I made it clear way back when I saw what the city was trying to pull.  It matters none now, the judge has ruled! 

All of this could have been avoided if Representative Rachel Quintana had been allowed to save the day.  You may remember (you don't because you weren't paying attention) that Quintana pleaded with council to let her write an ordinance that would protect the reitrees and others from losing their benefits.  Do you know what happened?  Are you sitting down? 

CITY COUNCIL VOTED TO BAR QUINTANA FROM USING THE CITY ATTORNEYS OFFICE TO HELP HER WRITE THE ORDINANCE THAT WOULD HAVE PROTECTED RETIREES!!!!

Yes, you read that right - members of city council voted against Quintana'S solution to the problem because they did not want to disconnect gay benefits from the more popular retiree benefits.  Quintana was stifled and retirees lost their benefits in the end. 

The specific move to bar her from using the city attorneys office for advice in crafting the ordinance was aimed at making sure whatever she did produce would be as imprecise language wise as the ballot initiative put together by the Jesus Freaks.  

Members of city council knew they were gambling with retiree benefits and it didn't seem to bother them one bit.  It makes me sick (not really, I don't have that much of a personal connection to the issue, but I like the dramatic tone of that phrase).  Something could have done at every turn here to protect them, but instead, their benefits are gone in the name of gay rights.  

Do you want to know why some people become unsympathetic with certain political movements?  Because those movements can affect the lives of many people not directly connected to the issue.  There are 6,000 current employees working for the City and retirees that number in the thousands as well and they've had their hard earned benefits gambled on the comfort of 35 or so people who are just a little different than the rest of us. Most of them, from what I understand, are straight and not legally married and don't want to make any kind of legal declaration of marriage. 

Again, there we go killing the herd to save a single calf. 

The worst part?  Same sex benefits had always been available to city workers before.  It wasn't until progressive city council members decided to grandstand the issue for the world to see that the option was taken away.  Way to go - a giant leap backwards for civil rights because somebody had to pat themselves on the back so the whole world could see.

Do you want some good news?  We all need good news.  Unfortunately, I don't provide much of it on this blog. However, I do have some today.

It is very likely that the city  attorneys office will "rethink" their interpretation of the ballot initiative in order to preserve benefits for the retirees and others affected by their initial "political miscalculation." There will be a quiet move to make this all go away until they can fight the domestic partner benefit issue at another time.  

This blog will be the only evidence of the stunt your elected officials and city staff tried to pull.  You'll forget soon enough and so will everyone else.  I'm not the best person to deliver this information to you because I don't really present either side as likable and that is an important factor in inspiring you to go raise hell.  I've inflamed you, but in a controlled manner.  You see, you like when I call them "the gays," but hate when I call you a "Jesus Freak." (Or vice versa - I don't assume only one group reads this blog.) Your self examination (metaphorically speaking... I hope) based on my labeling of you will in the end over power your outrage over what your politicians pulled on your dime and you'll just move on fearing any more exploration of the issue will just lead to more self examinations.

I want to qualify all the statements above by saying that I'm not anti-gay because I'm not falling all over myself to make them "more equal" than the rest of us.  Do I care about having a "gay friendly" city?  No.  I'm more concerned with not having a "gay unfriendly" city or a "black unfriendly" city than I am about anyone getting the special treatment associated with a "(fill in the blank) friendly" city.  No city should be rolling out the red carpet for some and not others.  Either put it out there for everyone, or throw the whole damn thing in the trash and move on.

My thoughts on the Jesus Freaks are the same. I respect your right to worship as long as it doesn't infringe on others.  You're free to live within the rules set forth by your book as long as you don't try to force those rules on others.  I am as opposed to substituting our constitution with your Bible as I am with substituting it with the Koran, Torah or other holy book. 

My view on gay benefits is identical to Lyda Ness-Garcia's - take away all dependent coverage for city employees and make them pay 100 percent of it like we do in the private sector.  If Ness-Garcia is elected, she will be the final vote they need to strip city employees of this big fat benefit during the budget sessions this summer. 

You can insure anyone you're willing to foot the bill for in my opinion. 

Jaime is Back! Give Him and Lyda a Click!

I'm kind of joking about the "him and Lyda" thing, but serious about you supporting Jaime's blog.  Some of you might remember that he quit blogging recently and went out with a head full of anger.  I said he'd be back in a week and I was close!  It's been more than a week.  The good news is that he's back.  You can read his blog by clicking HERE.

You must remember that after the election Jaime will still be a blogger and Lyda Ness won't be pulling his strings.  I truly believe he makes for interesting reading when he's not carrying water for someone - and I know the interesting reading part will be back right after the runoff. 

With that said...

Jaime is back blogging because Ness and her team are freaking out over the fact that they can't generate more negative media attention for Lilly.  An inside source (someone who is feeding me all the stuff that goes on behind closed doors at the Ness campaign) tells me that they tried like mad to make yesterday's El Paso Times opinion piece generate some buzz, but failed to do so.  The Times, Channel 4 and just about everybody else is tired of the Ness' constant pitching and they proved it by putting her story about Lilly on a Monday... The worst day for local news other than summer Fridays with Sunday and Saturday being the best days. 

Ness' media strategy is identical to the one she used in her judge's race, only this time she's running for an office people actually kind of care about.  Her wild accusations, grandstanding and constant harassment of assignments editors and news directors have turned everyone off and she needs someone like Jaime to keep spreading the nasty rumors she's inventing.  Poor Jaime can't say "no" to a damsel in distress, especially when he's taken this whole mess so personally (I have advice for Jaime going forward in a bit) - so he jumps back into the game on her behalf.  Boo hoo for his reasoning, but it's good that he's back because he will eventually move on to new topics - topics we enjoy.

What Lyda hasn't really planned for is that her strategy to paint Lilly in such a bad light, doesn't transfer votes to her, it just takes them away from Lilly.  In order to win a runoff when you are behind, you need to get people to switch from the other side to your side - Ness isn't achieving this.  However, Lilly is masterfully gobbling up all the votes she can from the other candidates.  More agonizing for Ness is that the EP Times editorial from Monday that admonished Lilly for switching sides on an issue, actually ended up being printed off and handed out at a well attended bible study last night as evidence of Lilly's commitment to the voters.  Not mentioned on the editorial is where Ness stands on those issues and from what I understand the room full of people felt Lilly made her stance on the issues clear!  The plan to all go early vote together as a part of their weekly bible study.

Remember, if Lilly brings 25 to 50 new voters to the polls, she can't be beat.  Ness must have every single person who voted for her come out and vote plus another 100 or so new voters.  I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm saying it's almost impossible. 

Another issue both Lyda and Jaime haven't thought about is the fact that the rumor around the Texas Ethics Commission is that her complaint might be the most frivolous one made in years.  Word is we're about to get some info on what they've decided in the case and Lilly stands to be able to hit Ness with a counter claim that could result in a fine of up to $10,000!  And let's not forget, the police department/ DA's office looked at her criminal complaint, laughed and went back to eating their donuts. 

You must remember that Ness included an email in the complaint from the city attorney's office to Representative Lilly on the subject of Ness' open record request.  Ness cites this as evidence that Lilly was campaigning on city time... even though it's required by the rules the city attorney alert Lilly and the fact that Ness' own actions were the catalyst for her name being mentioned in Lilly email.  The laughter was quite loud when certain parties were apprised of this email and Ness' claims.

Also, it may come out that Ness' name appeared in 10th floor emails because they're from Ness and they're invites to the sitting members of council to her fundraisers.  So it seems as if Lyda thinks it's okay for her to send campaign material to the 10th floor, but it's not okay for other citizens to do so?!?!?!

I could go on and on, but you get the piont - Ness is desparate and it's going to cost her money and quite possibly cost her supporter some money too. 

Also, the ridiculous claim that Jaime is now repeating that I, or Ann Lilly has threatened her family is going to get them both sued.  You can't acuse someone of committing a crime when you know for a fact that no crime has been committed (remember this when you file charges against someone and they aren't true).  Stop making stuff up to make yourselves look like victims!  It's very childish and everyone who reads, or hears you two make that claim thinks little of you.

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I think it is important to point out here that my involvement in this race was only spurred on by what I saw as an unfair media strategy (using the comments section of my blog in some cases) by the Ness campaign.  I simply wanted to throw my weight around to show Ness that you can't get away with spouting off bullshit for headlines when you owe the IRS and many other people significant sums of money.  The tax thing bothers the hell out of me because I pay my share and only a low-own piece of you know what would shirk their responsibility on purpose, which she has done. 

Anywho...

I don't fault Jaime for working for Lyda - she has a power over her followers that is Koresh-like to the say the least.  He feels he's going to get something for his work and he might need whatever it is he is getting. 

I fault the local media for being used by Ness.  The one thing I love about Sito Negron is that he will never let himself and his pen be used to lob campaign bombs.  At Newspaper Tree he never allowed himself to be compromised.  I can't speak that highly of the news outlets in this town after the abysmal coverage they supplied to the public during this race.  They glossed over Ness' tax and lawsuit issues in order to attack Lilly with an unsigned judge's order.  WTF?  The local media blew it big time and I'm not sure they even know it.

I've spent a lot of time on this issue on this blog because somebody had to say something to somebody.  Too bad nobody reads my blog, so this was just an exercise in therapy for me like yelling at a tree in a forest to pour out all that pent up frustration. 

I don't mind writing to an audience of zero like I do here every day - it's therapeutic to know that I'm my biggest, and only fan. 

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My advice to Jaime is pretty simple - don't take things so personally.  It's the blogosphere and we don't matter.  Getting so mad that you make mistakes like posting emails from "Lower Valley Dave" and claiming that I (David K) wrote them when it's clear I didn't, is just plain dumb and born out of severe anger.  He should never let a nobody like me get to him.  What do I matter?

He should have never fully quit!  The furniture stores always say they're "going out of business," but they never actually do it!  If you quit and you come back you lose lots and lots of credibility/face.  Take a break, write about cloud formations, but never quit unless you are really going to quit. 

Jaime doesn't allow negative comments about him to be posted on his blog, but he reads all the ones you submit for his approval.  To him it hurts just as much as if they were posted.   He can expect some mean words and he could have avoided it.  Again, he takes this all too personally. 

In the future I would not be so involved in people's campaigns and then put the weight on my shoulders of trying to make all their lies come true through your blog.  He should have told Lyda a long time ago "stop lying to me, you're making me look like an asshole."  Every lawyer in town felt for Jaime when he posted the unsigned judge's order and then a bunch of nonsense orders from the judge trying to prove his claim that Lilly owes $117,000.  Those lawyers know that Lyda set Jaime up to look like a fool if anyone actually took the time to read the documents.  Well, I did look and he looked like a fool and it hurt me in the long run to be the guy who had to show Jaime that lesson.  Lyda knew they were no good when she put him up to posting them.  That's not a nice thing to do and the whole time Jaime was angry at me for proving him wrong, he should have been angry at her.  She knew!

The golden rule to doing someone's bidding is to admit it up front.  I have never shied away from the fact that my living comes from designing and constructing housing developments, commercial developments, roads, bridges and all kinds of utilities.  Where I stand on issues related to that industry is clearly defined.   Jaime should start thinking about saying "I'm working with Lyda Ness to get the word out on how back Ann Lilly is for El Paso."  It's an easy thing to say and it makes your audience know they can trust you... and God knows he wants his audience to trust him!

Lastly - there are no winners and there no losers.  At least there isn't supposed to be.  I don't win or lose if Ness is elected.  She won't do much harm in the few months they let her serve (she will be removed from the office within one year and I have that on great authority) and if anything she will make for some wonderful open letters.  If Lilly wins... okay... who cares.  The next race is right around the corner and it's a big one!  What Jaime doesn't get is that none of the candidate I really like ever win in this city.  I'm in an extreme minority!  I'm the green and blue penguin here in El Paso and always will be.  I'm used to not having my candidates win - hell, what would I do if they won?  I'd have to find something new to bitch about!

The bottom line?  It's good to have Jaime back.  I'm really going to be either not doing this at all or at best very sporadically in the near future due to some major changes in my life, so you're going to need something to read when I'm gone. Go click the link and read what Jaime has to say today... and tomorrow and the day after that.

A Temporary Loss Now a Tremendous Permanent Loss

I was going through some old facebook posts and saw that Newspaper Tree advertised a position for "publisher."  You can see it HERE.

Looks like they're looking to make this into corporate driven bilingual news source that will fail so spectacularly, it might actually be entertaining to watch.

They want somebody with five years experience in the business of running a newspaper or a digital publishing outlet.  That's code word for "lap dog who has been trained to do nothing risky."  You can guarantee that any paper under the control of the old fuddy duds at the community foundation will do nothing more than offer in depth articles on the opera and symphony with some highlighted philanthropist thrown in for their propensity to donate to anyone who says nice things about them.  It will basically be an on line version of the El Paso Inc. - pictures of rich white people engaged in activities enjoyed mostly by rich white people. 

Gone will be the days of investigative reporting and edgy editorials where uncomfortable ideas and facts are explored.  No more Crowder and Negron sticking it to "the man."  It will be "the man" managing the talents of Crowder and Negron... if they even get invited back. 

All we need is another tightly controlled, scaredy cat news and opinion source where the insiders shine through their influence over the people doing the writing. 

Newspaper Tree is dead and the funeral starts the day the hire some corporate schmuck to make sure nobody says anything compelling, interesting or otherwise useful to the masses who are dying for real news and opinion. 

What a waste!

Youth Vote?

I just checked the list - only 201 of the 4,846 voters in District 1 were 30 years-old or younger. 

There were 2,337 voters aged 60 years or older.

You Have No Excuse

Mrs. Markel who lives on the westside voted early in this last election.  She was born 1/1/1901. 

You're too busy?  It doesn't matter?

Well I'm sure Mrs. Markel doesn't do much these days, but she does vote.

This is probably the date they use for people they don't have a real birthday for, but you should still be inspired!

Lilly's Deal and Lyda's Shocking News for City Employees

The El Paso Times had an interesting news article in the paper today.  It's titled "Ann Morgan Lilly gets conditional runoff endorsements, changes stance on partner benefits."  You can read the whole thing HERE.  I've got several thoughts on the article itself and some more thoughts on the ramifications of what they are reporting.  We'll start with the article itself.

I take issue with the title for a couple of reasons.

1. They mention the Noe vs. Mayela race at the end of the article.  I guess they more than "mention" the other race, they spend that last a few paragraphs talking about them.  I'm not sure what a better title would be, but I would have at least warned readers that they were going to get info on people who are not named "Ann Morgan Lilly."

2.  Lilly didn't really "change stance on partner benefits" by signing this pledge for Peinado and Hinojoso, did she?  She changed her stance on gay benefits when - and I'll quote the reporter's words directly to prove me right and them wrong:

"Lilly voted not to reverse the results of a ballot initiative that called for 'traditional family values,' in essence denying health benefits for unmarried partners of city employees after first voting to vacate the ballot results."

The article states that Lilly made that vote in November of last year.  So, she didn't "change" her stance on the issue when she signed the pledge yesterday, she changed it months ago.  The "flip flop" was news way back in November. Her stance now is consistent with the last vote she cast on the matter.

I do think the fact that Lilly did sign the pledge in order to get the support of two of her former opponents is news worthy.  I also think that Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third's stance on the issue is news worthy because it's bigger than a flip flop - it's a contradiction of her actions and words.  She's a part of the lawsuit to keep gay benefits and ignore the voter's will, but says she's against the very key item that makes any of this the voter's business - taxpayers paying for dependent coverage!

More on that in a minute.

The big news for Lilly is that if she even picks up 50 votes from the two former opponents, it would be an enormous hill for Ness to climb.  Remember, Ness needs to take votes from Lilly and increase her turnout.  We know that Lilly voters won't cross over to Ness - they've voted for Lilly three times and will do it again in the runoff.  If Lilly adds new voters to her number... well it's curtains for Ness. 

And what's the big deal about signing a pledge that is basically innocuous in areas that matter and useless in areas that don't.  I agree with Ness and Noe who both know that the city council will never ever get another vote on gay benefits. The question is in the courts and whatever they say goes.  Well, unless you change how the city does benefits and who pays for what and how much.  More on this in a minute.

Calling Lilly a "flip flopper" might seem like a negative in most cases. However, in this case she has reiterated her stance on the subject and her stance is in line with the majority of the voters. When you're in a runoff and every vote counts - you want to be the candidate who supports popular ideals.  Many people out there are going to be inspired to go vote for Lilly after reading about her nonsupport for gay benefits.  Brilliant!  If you're going to "flip flop," always flop towards popular public opinion.

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Now we can do this Ness thing I've been teasing you with. 

Lyda Ness and I agree on something - I support the employees providing coverage for anybody they want - AT THEIR COST.  Gay, straight, stranger, sister, brother, turtle or somebody's sick mother - I don't care who you cover as long as you are paying for it.  God bless Ness - she got one right! 

But... (you knew a "but" was coming and you know it can't be good)

For those of you who do not know how the city's health insurance program works, let me educate you.

The city picks up the cost of the employee and 70% of their dependent coverage.  And when I write "the city picks up" I mean - the taxpayers pay for it. 

Most of us don't have the luxury of having our employer pick up 70% of our dependent coverage.  In fact, most employers pick up about zero percent of dependent coverage and about 70 to 80 percent of the employee's direct coverage.  Bottom line - city employees have a great health insurance plan. It's way better than anything you'll find in the private sector save for a few employers that don't want to be employers for very long.

The crux of the gay hater's argument against gay benefits is that they don't want their tax dollars going to pay for benefits for gay couples.  Remember the taxpayer picks up 70% of the dependent coverage, which means they have a say in how, and on what, that money is spent. At least taxpayers would like to think they do!

Ness fixes the mess by simply taking the taxpayer funding out of the equation.  If the city employee wants to insure a dependent, it comes out of their own pocket.  They can insure whoever the want when they are footing the bill.  Obviously I mean that they can insure whoever they want within reason. There are some legal arguments that could open up what "dependent" truly means if you are going to let gays have coverage even though they aren't recognized by the government.  That's another argument for another day.  I will say that if you are a polygamist, you should get a lawyer - there's some money to be made on this deal.

Anywho...

If you're a city employee and you hear what Ness is saying, you can't be too happy.  A "family coverage" plan where most people work runs about $700 a month. I would suppose that the city's plan is in that neighborhood.  The city employee pays roughly $290 a month to cover the whole gang - not bad!   If Ness had it her way, the city employee would be out the entire $700 because she wants to do away with the city picking up any dependent care. 

Read this slowly city employees - Lyda Ness and David Karlsruher agree on one thing - we think you should pay the entire cost of your dependent care and that could be more than 250% of what you are paying now.  If they take $290 out of your check each month to cover your wife and kids, we would like to see that number go up to $700. 

If Ness got her way, her lawsuit would be null and void.  After all, she's taking taxpayer benefits completely off the table.  We can't vote to tell city employees what they can do with their own money, now can we?  Nope. 

All of this brings me to the big contradiction that is Ness' stance on gay benefits - she says she supports gay benefits, but then says she wants to take away the benefit entirely!  Which is it?  And why are we paying all this money for this stupid lawsuit if she doesn't really believe in paying for gay benefits?

Listen up city employees and I'll give you a little hint and a little assignment.  If Ness is elected there are enough votes on council to eliminate your dependent coverage. If Lilly wins, you keep your great benefit.  If I were you I'd be out there telling every person I know in District 1 to go vote for the person who is going to preserve your perks.  If you don't - I win and Ness wins, and you don't want that.  

Right now there are a lot of city employees who are thinking "we might lose our great benefits because 35 people wanted special treatment?  A total of 6,000 people get screwed for the comfort of 35?  Bullshit!"

Welcome to the way Lyda Ness solves problems. 

The reason you're hearing this from me is because the two reporters who wrote this article don't know anything about how benefits at the city work.  People are still arguing about this as if it's not simply an issue of taxpayer dollars and how taxpayers control those dollars. 

So would you rather have Lilly's flip flop, or Ness harsh hand of reality swiping away your benefits?  Elect Ness and they'll have the votes to end dependent coverage!

I Need Help Confirming Rumor

Below you'll find an allegation sent to me numerous times by different sources and also posted on the El Paso Times comments thingymajig. 

Does anyone know about this?  Can anyone confirm this is true?

Here's the text that's been sent around:

City Council Candidate Gives Community Service Hours to "Volunteers"
If the allegations of owing the IRS over $190,000 in back taxes was not enough. Reports are coming in that the Lyda Ness-Garcia Campaign was giving people who were under supervision by the West Texas Adult Supervision Department, OK stop with the big words, people who were on probation, community service hours for helping her campaign. How is this possible you ask? It comes back to Danny Rollings/Steele. Danny is the Treasurer for Rio Grande Adelante. The group has a website that informs its followers that they have a Community Service Restitution Program.

"Rio Grande Adelante is pleased to announce our newest collaboration as an agency with the West Texas Community Supervision and Corrections Department. As a registered agency with the WTCS&CD, individuals may sign-up to do their court mandated community service hours working on Rio Grande Adelante community projects. Some of those projects may include: "Adopt-A-Highway" clean-up, program workshops, event preparation, and community involvement."

According to the website only three people have participated in those community involvement programs. The rest who received hours through Rio Grande Adelante, according to a reliable source, have received hours for walking and campaigning for Lyda-Ness-Garcia. Is this the same Lyda-Ness-Garcia who was able to convince news stations to bombard her opponent, Ann Morgan Lilly, on a nightly basis with allegations of using city equipment for campaign purposes? Yup, its the same one. This lady has the nerve to go on television and accuse Ann Morgan-Lilly of using city equipment to campaign while she is using people from the West Texas Community Supervision and Corrections Department to do her campaign work. Let's see if the news stations cover this story. Let's see how quickly Danny and Lyda run to cover their tracks.

I Was Wrong - Story Was "El Pasoed" to Death

I had warned everyone to be alive and alert for the public comments portion of today's city council meeting. Thank you to the folks who heeded my warning.  I'm sorry you were disappointed.  What I thought was going to happen was "El Pasoed" and went to the place where all important things go to die - the video archives of city council meetings.

You might be wondering what "El Pasoed" means.  I'm glad you asked.  When something is "El Pasoed" it has been exposed to something that only El Paso can expose it to.  In this case, as you will see, the "El Pasoed" action has to do with the complete inability to articulate one's point in a clear, and concise manner.  We in El Paso have cornered the market on terrible communicators.  Mumbles Medina comes to mind immediately.

Anywho... Here's the story.

It wasn't until after lunch on Sunday that the phone calls and emails started rolling in with hints, tips and questions about the two run-offs for city council seats. I heard that District 1 candidate Theresa Ann Ware-Asbury wasn't too happy with Lyda Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.  During last Tuesday's special city council meeting Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third entered a note written by Asbury into the record in support of her (Ness) agenda item (open records request).  The truth was that Asbury note was no such thing and Asbury in no way supported then, or supports now what Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third was doing in reference to the open records request and subsequent complaints filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. 

In simple terms - Asbury's position was purposely misrepresented by Ness to the council.  The cherry on top is that a lawyer knowingly presented a false pretense for an item she had placed into the record.  That lawyer is Ness.

Was Asbury able to communicate this to the city council with all the media watching?  Hell no.

Asbury "El Pasoed" the whole thing with what I can only describe as the most incoherent, unintelligible mix of sound and thought I've witnessed since seeing Jorge Artalejo speak at a candidate forum one month ago.  This woman was billed to me as the smartest person in any race for any office in the history of El Paso.  There was no shortage in the amount of praise for her brilliance by other bloggers and their democrat party overlords. 

If she is in fact the modern Einstein they say she is, her ability to communicate that genius is extremely inadequate. We are all truly missing whatever brilliance she has stored in her head.  At one point during her speech I was ready to alert the police officer on duty that she may be having a stroke.  One of the symptoms of a stroke is incoherence (read about stroke symptoms HERE) and she was very incoherent.

I thought for sure this was an opportunity to put Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third on the hot seat with the media.  She's already gotten away with Texas ethics judgements, not paying $190,000 in taxes and owing tens of thousands of dollars in civil judgments against her. I just knew the media would finally say "enough is enough - you can't knowingly misrepresent the position of a citizen in an effort to further your own political position! And on top of it make it official by entering a letter into the record under false pretenses!"

Instead... there were crickets.  Lots and lot sof silence backed by tiny little chirps from tiny little crickets.

El Pasoed. It was El Pasoed.  El Pasoed beyond recognition or recovery.

In Asbury's defense, all the other speakers in the open comments section El Pasoed everything they were talking about too.  Hell, even before they spoke a city council member El Pasoed a prepared statement.  I'm sure as the meeting went on that every other agenda item was El Pasoed by at least one person.  It's what we do in El Paso.  It's why nobody wants to move their company here.  We can't communicate and they can't wait around trying to get a straight answer from us.  And that's not to mention the other ways in which we have El Pasoed our guests in the past.

Let me write down for you exactly what Asbury should have said. I feel I need to prove to you that issues like these can be packaged in a precise, succinct manner.

Here's what she should have said:

My name is Theresa Ware-Asbury.  I was here last week for the special city council meeting.  I could not stay the entire time.  I passed a note to Lyda Ness-Garcia indicating that I support due process for anyone accused of any wrongdoing.  Ms. Ness-Garcia entered my note into the record and told city council that I was in support of her desire to acquire the results of her open records request for free. It may have also been construed from her comments on the intent of my note that I felt Representative Lilly was guilty of an ethics violation.  Let me be clear, my note and intentions were completely and irresponsibly misrepresented by Ms. Ness-Garcia. She knowingly misrepresented my intentions to further her own political future. I ask that the record by corrected and that Ms. Ness-Garcia apologize to this elected body for her actions. God bless you and God bless the USA.

How hard is that? 

She sure made a fool of me.  The Teflon Attorney survives another close call.  At this point Ness is going to have to set a puppy on fire inside the children's cancer wing at the hospital if she's going to get a single word of bad press.  Then again, she'll be able to blame someone else for the puppy, the cancer and the fire and the media will buy it and print it.   Don't we all wish the IRS was as forgiving as the El Paso press when it comes to not paying your taxes for years on end. 

"Oh, you say it's your accountant's fault?  Well, hell - just forget you even owe anything!  These things happen and we all know how accountants are!  It's okay you didn't fire him after the first two times he screwed up your taxes, who would have thunk he would do it three years in a row? Ooopsies! Let's not worry that your own time line of events completely contradicts your own statements about those events - you're not lying!  You're confused!  We think the world of you - you're the best! We hope you get elected. In fact, we'll write a letter on your behalf to all voters."

Wouldn't that be nice? 

The El Paso press pretty much El Pasoed the whole Ness story in their own special way.  The big story before the election?  Cortney Niland's completely legal contributions.  Meanwhile we have one candidate taking contributions from corporations and one who can't pay her taxes or her judgements and could be the first elected official in the history of El Paso to have their wages garnished by multiple governmental entities. 

My God. 

Shoot Me. 

Settle down Mejia clan, that's not an invitation.  It's a figure of speech.

Sorry for the meltdown. 

I think I've had just about as much as El Paso as I can take for a while.

Blind Item Monday

If you're a part of the local media - be at city council tomorrow in time for the open comment period.  You will not regret it unless you're not there and then you'll definitely regret it.  There's at least one other big item on the agenda with significant future ramifications.

What third place candidate talked to a first place candidate flanked by two or three of the other candidates today?  There's a second place candidate who made all of them mighty mad... at least that's what I hear.

Which candidate has the entire county courthouse up in arms over their recent behavior? 

Which candidate's campaign manager is already on the ground working today?

Which candidate is about to find out that their funding has dried up?  At the worst possible time!

What media outlet is unhappy with their coverage of the Lilly vs. Ness battle?  Turns out they realized they ran with more than one story with the wrong information.

 

The Day After the Election

What do we know now that the votes have been counted?

 We'll go district by district and then talk about some general themes.

District 1:

I truly thought Lilly was sunk after some well timed media bombs were dropped by Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.  However, her own sordid history softened those bombs and tended to send voters away from Lilly, but not to her.  Those votes seem to have spread themselves out among the other candidates.  Manny Hinojosa's roughly 12 percent draw kept either Lilly from almost escaping a run-off or Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third  from making this race a lot closer.  Either way Hinojosa was a big factor in the race.

Roughly 364 votes separate Lilly and Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.   The run-off is an up hill battle for Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third, who has run out of bombs.  In fact, media outlets are starting to hit back at her asking her to back up her claims.  In her KVIA interview last night Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third claims that Lilly went after her family.  When asked to elaborate, she couldn't.  Anyone who saw that saw a desperate women telling desperate lies.  My email box was full this morning and could five or six of them were on the subject of Ness' KVIA interview.  They all agreed that she comes off very angry and unable to reconcile her outlandish claims with actual evidence.  Her most recent complaints against Lilly will be thrown out rather quickly and her media strategy will be dead because the media will be tired of following her wild goose chase that ends up nowhere.  Theresa Caballero did the same thing to these news folks a while back and the general feeling is that they got burned. 

Neither candidate is going to "steal" votes from each other.  The key will be to have the folks who voted for you the first time to come out and vote for you again.  But... Ness needs to pick up votes to win - roughly her total plus half to compete. 

Rumor has it that the run-off may be a month long.  This is bad news for Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third whose base is younger and less focused.  Lilly's base is made up of 100% voters who don't miss an election.

If I were Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third I would start talking about the issues and stop throwing mud at Lilly.  It's getting to the point that people see Ness as picking on an older woman unfairly.  Old people vote - don't pick on them.  Plus there's the David K factor.  My blog is getting a tremendous amount of traffic and don't think for a second that people aren't seeing what the truth is.

As far as splitting up the votes the other candidates received... Manny voters see Ness as a liberal, so they'll break to Lilly if they even show up.  Ness will get Ware's votes if they bother to show up. Advantage goes to Lilly. 

District 5:

Mejia had all the money, all the endorsements and not a majority of the votes.  Looks like she suffers from credibility problems and didn't have the ground game Noe had.  Noe put the distance between him and Mejia on election day - early voting was much closer than the day of numbers.  Noe beat her by 100 in early voting and two hundred on the day of the election.  Those statistics play in Noe's favor.

Noe's key is Dora Oaxaca.  She turns out the vote and all he has to do is get them to come back one more time.  Mejia has to get every single person who voted for her the first time and then some.  She can't count on Sonia Brown's voters and I don't think Noe can either. 

We will have to see if Mejia's donors are tapped out or if they are still even interested.  They might think it's pointless to give anymore cash to someone who didn't finish first in the race to the run-off.

The difference may come in what comes out of some not-so-thinly veiled threats at me coming from the Mejia camp.  My buddy Jaime told me that I'd be "getting some phone calls" and he was right.  They were over the line, but not illegal yet.  However, as the anger grows and the threats continue, something will eventually have to be done to protect my family.  It's sad that certain people would take things to a point that could really hurt their candidate in the long run.  You can beat me up, tear up my property and even burn my house down while my family and I sleep, but it won't get your candidate elected.  Every election cycle people fail to realize that and I go through this crap. 

This race is just getting started as far as I'm concerned.

District 6:

Representative Holguin easily won and I know why.  Holguin votes his district's will every Tuesday and they thanked him for it.  I don't agree with his outlook on many issues, but that also means I don't agree with his entire district's outlook either.  What I think doesn't matter when everyone he represents agrees with him.   I see a new title for Holguin in the future - something like "Commissioner" or "State Representative."

District 8:

I think Niland is our next rockstar politician in El Paso.  She's a Veronica Escobar-like politician and there's no telling how far she can go. 

Niland was the first one in the race and the one who raised all the money.  That should be a lesson to all candidates - you need money and you need to be in early.   Niland was able to get her name out there and people became comfortable with her.  She looked like a winner from the start and it turned into lots of votes. 

Ernesto Villanueva proved himself to have a future in El Paso politics by hanging in there on a shoe-string budget and a limited organization behind him.  I don't agree with his politics, but if he cleans up his facebook page, attends any and all meetings, he might just win the next one.  He can talk.  He just needs to know more about the issues that will matter to him and his voters. 

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Here's what I learned most from this election.

1.  The Jesus freaks aren't to be laughed at.  None of Tom Brown's candidates won a race, but every single one of them took double digit numbers and in the races with lots of people running, it meant something.  Districts 1 and 5     would be much different races without Brown's candidates taking votes.  I'm not saying they will ever win as candidates, but Tom Brown's group will definitely get an audience with anyone who is running in the future.  If talking to Tom Brown's flock means he doesn't run a candidate in your race that could be the difference between being in a run-off and not being in one - I guarantee candidates will sit down with them.  A smart candidate in a run-off might want to start trying to get that meeting with Brown right now.

2.  Single issue candidates can't win because they're too ignorant to all the other issues.  Many of these candidates were running solely on the gay benefits issue and failed to win over voters on any other issue.  In fact, they all tried to hide their one issue fixation and spent most of their time bungling all the other issues they didn't understand.  Voters saw through the charade.

3.  The local media is lazy, dumb and willing to do the bidding of single individuals with an axe to grind.  Ness made Lilly look like satan with false accusations the media was unwilling to vet before reporting.  By the time it became apparent that Ness was a financial mess, the media was much too embarrassed to cover it at the risk of making themselves look very bad.  Highlights of the media's bad behavior center around their inability to properly source allegations of misconduct and using documents as evidence that were not vetted with anyone who'd know anything about their veracity.  Taking someone's word that an anonymous person on the 10th floor says a crime was committed, but was unwilling to report it is not what a good reporter does.  A good reporter also doesn't shove unsigned court ruling in hapless interviewees faces in an attempt at pulling of a respectable ambush.  My advice to future candidate is to whisper campaign the hell out their opponents and throw out as much fake evidence as you can.  The local news outlets are willing to believe anything and report it!  I think the worst thing the media did this election was avoid Ness' tax story.  It's a sure fire story in every news market in the country, but the local media in El Paso had to have their arm twisted to give it any thought and once they did cover it, they didn't cover it very well. 

4.  The El Paso Times endorsements aren't based on anything other than a blind draw of a name from a hat.  They don't care who they endorse and it shows in how they defend their endorsements - with the same basic non-specific babble they use every cycle.  The good news is that they no longer have much sway over the electorate and their picks are just fodder for the bloggers.

5.  Turnout is getting worse, not better.  We are becoming a group of voters who only show up for the presidential race every four years.  As the group of voters that can be depended on to vote shrinks, they become ultra powerful.  There are about 4,000 people in this city that you can call 100% voters.  A candidate would be wise to go meet every single one of them before he or she runs and craft their platform specifically to the needs of that tiny group.

6.  Candidate forums are worthless.  It's the same people at every event.  A candidate can be knocking on doors and meeting voters during the time they waste talking to the same crowd of 25 people three or four times a week.  In the next election you'll see candidates simply skipping the forums and using the time to connect with real voters - possibly those 4,000 that vote in every election.

7.  You can't beat direct mail.  

8.  Controlling the comments section of a blog or the newspaper doesn't transfer to controlling public opinion.  You're only ever really preaching to a small group of people and many of them aren't in your district. 

That's all...

Strategy Exposed?

I noticed that the comments section for the El Paso Times' article on the races is missing something.  I'd like to say I didn't notice it at first, but it was obvious.

One candidate didn't have the usual flood of negative comments being posted about her opponent.  Looks like the whisper campaign effort took the night off once the voters had voted. 

If you're really about the issues, why did you have your campaign "staff" (I use that with zero respect for them) sit around posting comments on blogs and on the El Paso Times' site?  Or was it just one staffer posting tons and tons of times? 

I guess we'll see that strategy in action starting Monday. 

The Public Relations Market for Animals

I was surprised to see that mountain lion story making it all the way into the weekend.  I see that there are some people that are mighty upset over the lion losing its life.  It's a complicated issue and I think our general perception of certain animals makes it appear worse than it is.

My wife was at work at St. Clements when the lion went tearing through campus and brushed by the Head Master, Nick Cobos.  They locked down the school and took every precaution to keep the kids safe.  My wife describes a comical scene where police and the media were chasing the poor lion through the campus with the media frequently outpacing law enforcement.  Things turned a lot less comical when it was decided that the lion had to die. 

My wife and I disagree on how the story should have ended for the lion.  I'm not happy the lion was shot and killed, but I understand the need.  The lion was no more than 100 feet from a school full of children.  Had they not shot the lion and she took off back to the school and hurt anyone - we'd be screaming "why didn't you kill it when you had the chance?"  I tend to bend toward cautious side when it comes to wild animals with sharp claws and teeth.

My wife was hoping for the tranquilizers to work and the lion to be returned to the wild.  She thinks the lion was contained and would have eventually taken a nap.  Who knows?

A guy who was a big lobbyist for the horses for dinner crowd (my own moniker for them) once asked me what the difference between a cow and a horse is.  Before I could get into an answer based on my few semesters participating in FFA, he told me " you see, a horse has a better PR team than the cow."  He went on to compare coyotes to wolves and certain birds to other birds (dove and pigeons, for example).  HIs point was that public perception has superseded the idea of "all Gods creatures."  He was mangling a constitutional idea of all men being created equal and a biblical theme, but I got his point.  What makes a baby roach any less precious than golden retriever puppy?  Public perception, apparently. 

Had the animal been a mangy coyote and not a glorious mountain line, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  Because it was an animal with a mystique, it's a contentious issue. 

I can only say again that I think if the police on the scene hadn't shot the animal and someone got hurt, their asses would be in a sling.  After the lion went through a campus full of children the game changed significantly.  These officers are her to protect us, not wildlife - and that's what they ultimately did.  After the fact we can do the "woulda, coulda, shoulda," but it does no good. 

Jaime's Tantrum - Can't Admit When He's Wrong

UPDATE:  this just in - Jaime has posted an email he thinks is from me, but is from "LVD" or better known to everyone as "Lower Valley Dave" where he (LVD) quotes my blog to someone at City Hall.  Jaime is really falling apart here.   I never sign personal emails "David K." What an idiot.  He's all becoming a victim and a cry baby and blaming me for the comments of others.  So sad.  He can't even get that right.

-----------------------

I was hoping Jaime would respond the post where I embarrass him to the core over his inability to read a document and check it for signatures.  It's a simple thing that any moron would do when making an accusation that the document was supposed to support.  Jaime didn't enjoy a very good reputation among educated lawyer-type folks to begin with - a roar of laughter went through the county courthouse when they word got out that he was duped by an unsigned motion for summary judgement.  We'll find out later in this post that he also has a problem reading dates.

I feel bad for the guy.  He's supposed to quit blogging tomorrow and he's going out on a serious losing streak.  He's even trying base his entire case that Lilly forced Tony Pearson to conduct campaign activities on Tony Pearson' s word.  Remember, Pearson was fired from the city for misusing the city credit card.  He sounds like just the type of guy who tells the truth.  Poor Jaime has one email that didn't even originate from Pearson that he says proves Lilly was conducting campaign operations at city hall.  The only thing Jaime hasn't figured out - Ann Lilly didn't send that email to Pearson and She didn't answer back - Pearson did.  He's guilty, she's not.  Again, if you're not very smart, you won't be able to see the facts here.

And let's be honest - Jaime isn't quitting blogging.  He's too much of a self-promoter to stop and besides, it takes integrity and credibility to actually do what you say you are going to do.  He has neither.  He'll be gone for a week and then he'll be back doing some candidate's dirty work.  That's what he lives for.  And good for him - although, he needs to learn a little bit about legal documents going forward.

So, with Jaime's latest document posting he basically admits that his previous document that he posted was bullshit and shouldn't have been paid attention to.  It makes me wonder why he posted the original document?  Oh, that's right!  He was telling the world that Ann Lilly was forced to pay $117,000 to someone in a lawsuit.   Jaime didn't realize that the judge didn't sign the summary judgement in December or 2009 that would have made Lilly pay $117,000.  So what does Jaime do when I post the document that is the final word on what happened in the lawsuit?  

He posts a series of documents that make no sense to his argument. 

Jaime must not know how to read because if you read the documents he posts (Download 55368818-Lilly-Payment-Orders) you don't see anywhere where anyone was told to pay anything.  I think that Jaime expected to name the documents "payment orders" and have people just assume that meant they required Lilly to pay $117,000.  Well, I actually read the documents and they don't say that.  Granted, he does rest is entire argument on the fact that these documents are signed!  Too bad they aren't what he claims they are and they are dated significantly earlier than the document I present.

Yep, a little understanding of calendars and time-lines would have saved Jaime even more embarrassment.  Don't pay attention to the stamp for the day that Gilbert Sanchez's office filed the documents.  Pay attention to the dates that documents were signed.  Looks like my document is the one they signed last.  Do you know what that means?  It means my document wins!  Had Jaime even looked to check if his documents were newer than mine, he wouldn't be suffering this blog-beating right now.

In all seriousness, Jaime basically admits that his first attempt at slandering Lilly wasn't a very good one.  He then ignores my document (he's good at ignoring the documents I post, like Ness' legal and tax troubles - not a word out of Jaime on those) because it trumps his document.  And then Jaime posts a bunch of nonsense documents and claims that they are a "pay order," when it's actually the judge requesting that the document I posted be filed with him by April 29, 2010.  The worst part?  He tried to play off his original BS claim and the "proof" that went with it, with another BS claim with more BS "proof."

I think Charlie Sheen has a description for what I'm doing here - WINNING.

Here's the kicker.  Lilly did end up paying the attorney fees for Innovative Applications Corporation to the tune of $18,000.  Lilly has admitted that several times and it's a lot more damming than the imaginary sum of $117,000 that has made Jaime and Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernadez-the third look like lying jerks.  They should be talking about her having to pay $18,000 and be done with it!

If I was Jaime I would have called Lyda Ness out for leading him down the path.  He is so dumbstruck by Ness that he's losing any edge he once had.  If I were him I would have cut ties with her a long time ago and outed her for the fool she is.  He didn't mind switching sides on Norma Chavez, what power does Ness have over him that he can't think clearly?  Worse, he hates Theresa Caballero, but is actively supporter her protege!

He's taken the supposed last weeks of his blog and squandered his reputation on this woman.  It's senseless.  It's also why I don't get wrapped up with candidates like he does. 

Let's see if he learns anything moving forward.  He's got a long time blogging ahead of him and this is just part of the learning process.  There's a reason I get almost a dozen people each day who read this blog.

I should note that even though I have called the media out to set the record straight and done my best to inform the three or four of you who frequent this blog, the damage to Lilly is done.  She will not win this race because Lyda's lies to the press have played much better than anyone could have ever imagined.  Turnout in District 1 is very high compared to the rest of the districts - this is bad news for the incumbent.  I hope Jaime and Lyda are happy that they had to lie, cheat and steel their way to success.  It's only going to embolden them further.  Expect their media bombs to work just like Theresa Caballero's do.  It's so funny that Jaime talks about Caballero's ethics when he does exactly what she does.  Hypocrisy at its best.

Ann Lilly Commits No Crime - Another Lawsuit Lyda Can't Afford

Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third is at it again.  She's having a meltdown that is a mix of Norma Chavez and Theresa Caballero.  She paraded the media up to the ninth floor of city hall yesterday to view the emails she said would show that Ann Lilly is a criminal... Well, her main source of Lilly information, Tony Pearson broke the law and Lilly's current assistant confirmed a meeting with Save the Valley.

That's it? 

A special city council meeting, accusations of a mass conspiracy at city hall, hours of whining and crying and Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third comes up with TWO EMAILS?  Two emails, none of which are from Lilly!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?   What happened to the 34 emails that Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third claimed were about her and her campaign manager?  Where is the incriminating evidence? 

You can file any amount of complaints against Lilly for things her assistants did, but you're not going to get a judgment against her. You don't have to be a lawyer to figure that one out.  I know for a fact that other city council members have received invites to campaign forums at their offices. In fact, it's quite common! It's not against the law for a constituent to send an email to the wrong place. 

As for Tony Pearson's violation of the law where engaged in election activities using city computers - fire him again!  He's already a disgrace piece of cow waste, you can't make it much worse for him.  What the media doesn't pick up on is that Pearson has been Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third's inside source on all the bad things Lilly did and it turns out that PEARSON IS THE ONLY ONE WHO BROKE THE LAW!

Here's the press release Lilly put out that none of the news outlets even read:

For immediate release to the media.

One of my opponents, a lawyer who has been sanctioned by the Texas Ethics Commission, who currently has a fine pending with the Texas Ethics Commission for being delinquent in a report, who is the subject of substantial federal tax liens, and who is a debtor by judgment to vendors to her law practice, is apparently trying to distract voters from the issues in our campaign by making false accusations against me.

I have not seen any complaints, and if and when I do, we will respond in an appropriate legal manner in the appropriate legal forum.  The allegations she has made to the media so far have been false.  I am confident that I will be vindicated of any other complaints that she may make.

If the opponent chooses to make any complaints, we will pursue any legal remedies to the full extent permitted by the law.  I will not permit that opponent, or anyone, to go unchallenged if she tries to attack my family, my name, my life service to this community, or my service on city council.

It is very unfortunate that this opponent has seen fit to attempt to campaign through media attacks, which only serve to reveal the lack of scruples, values and mean spirit of the candidate.  Do the good citizens of District 1 deserve a representative like that?  Absolutely not.  They deserve better, and that is why I am seeking re-election. 

I am confident that the fine citizens of District 1 are more than capable of examining the facts and the allegations and making up their own minds. I trust the people in my district, and I trust their judgment.

 Since the opponent has stated that she is bringing legal complaints, please refer all further inquiries to my lawyer, Mark Walker, at 541-9322.

Respectfully,

 Ann Morgan Lilly

Representative, District 1

City of El Paso

If I were Mark Walker I would be starting the process of suing Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third for slander.  She has repeatedly accused Lilly of committing a crime when no crime has been committed.  There are special circumstances that surround what lawyers say about people in the public.  To put it succinctly - Lawyers know better and it's easier to prove they knew what they were saying was slanderous when they were saying it.

Of course, if being full of shit was a crime - Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third would be doing ten life sentences.

 

KVIA and Others Owe Ann Lilly an Apology

On Tuesday of this week the news staff over at KVIA suffered a black eye due to an overzealous reporter with an inappropriate relationship with a candidate for office.  Also taken along for the ride was local blogger, Jaime Abeytia.  Although, I think Jaime knew what he was getting into and a willing participant in the slandering of Representative Ann Lilly.

KVIA is a place where Dr. Barthy Byrd got me an internship back in 2000-2001. She felt that the news environment at that station was healthy and a great place to learn.  While I was there they talked often about the trust their audience had in their news.  I was truly inspired back then.  Now, I'm disapointed in the people at KVIA who let this happen and who I once looked up to as role models.

KVIA's reporter engaged in "gotcha journalism" by shoving documents in Ann Lilly's face and demanding she answer whether or not she had ever been ordered to pay $117,000 to someone who sued her.  The attack was out of place for a story that was introduced as a piece on an open records request by Lilly's opponent, Lyda Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.  How this reporter was convinced to ambush Lilly with a document that she never checked out or verified with people who would know about validity/history of it is rather simple.  The reporter has a relationship with Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third and they planned the attack together.  In most media markets that's grounds for termination.  Damaging the reputation of trusted news team, like the one they have at KVIA, is a serious trespass against those person's future careers in news.  When one person lies - they all pay for that lie.

I have the document that shows how the civil suit Ann Lilly was involved in ended.  There is not order for anyone to pay $117,000.  Anyone who claims there was an order to pay is lying to you and lying about Ann Lilly and they should apologize to Lilly and YOU. 

Read the document - Download LILLY_Innovative Dismissal.

I don't see any mention of anyone paying $117,000 to any other party.  I do see the Judge Alvarez's signature along with the attorneys' signatures for both parties.  Without those signatures, the document would be worthless.  The other document that KVIA hasand that Jaime Abeytia posted is not signed.  Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third purposely gave the unsigned document to both Abeytia and KVIA with the intention of them reporting it as the judgement in the case knowing full well that it was not the resolution to the suit. 

Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third is the master manipulator.  She has made an ass out of the entire KVIA team and convinced further that Jaime Abeytia is for sale.  Abeytia talks about "credibility," but suspends any credibility he ever had by pleasing Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third. 

I hope that both KVIA and Abeytia are working on public apologies to Ann Lilly.

I warned people about paper pants.  Somebody should have taken the matches from them. 

The not-so "Gotcha" Moment

My buddy Jaime Abeytia dug himself and his candidate into a hell of a hole over the past few months.  He doubled-down on Lyda Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third and lost.  Now he's trying to fight back and it's just not working.

He references a news story today that ABC7 did yesterday on the hearing for Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third's open records request.  The story done by KVIA is nothing short of an embarrassment and Kevin Lovell's idol (mine too), Dr. Barthy Bird, would rip it to pieces.  Since Dr. Bird is busy, I'll rip it to pieces for her.

Go see the piece yourself HERE.

The story is introduced as a piece on Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third's open records request.  However, the reporter never really gets into that issue and what the arguments for and against Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third's position were.  Instead the whole package is a setup to ask Representative Lilly if she was ever forced to pay someone $117,000 in a lawsuit.  It's obvious that Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third had this reporter on the hook from the start.

I watched the entire special city council agenda item from start to finish and the KVIA piece in no way covered what happened.  Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third was beat like a red headed step child by every single person in the room save for her campaign manager.  It was so embarrassing for her that it was hard to watch.  None of this came through on the story filed by the KVIA reporter.

What KVIA showed was a story that was supposed to about an open records request, but ended with a gotcha question for Lilly. 

Jaime Abeytia swears that Ann Lilly met her Waterloo and proudly paraded the piece out on his blog.  He even went as far as to provide the documentation to prove that Ann Lilly lied. 

Well, poor Jaime loses again and along with him so does KVIA.  The only difference - KVIA should know better.  Kevin Lovell and Brenda De Andaknow better than to send a reporter out to ambush someone with a document that hasn't been checked out by someone who knows what they are looking at.  Jaime doesn't know any better.  Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third told him to post the piece and he did what he was told.

You see, the document that the KVIA reporter referred to, and Jaime posted, isn't signed by the judge.  Without that signature, it's toilet paper.  Neither KVIA, nor Jaime took the time to figure out what the document ment. Now they both have egg on their face because both of them lack credibility due to the fact they used an unsigned court document as if it were signed and executed by the court.  It's less of an issue for a blogger because he has no credibility to begin with, none of us do.  The reporter from KVIA shames the entire news room with her actions.  Gary Warner wouldn't have stood for this.  The fact that Kevin Lovell and Brenda De Anda let this get by them is disappointing.  I like Lovell and part of the reason I got into media was De Anda and I'm crushed this came out of her news room (speaking of crush... I had the biggest one on De Anda in college). They both know better.

Here's the info on Lilly's lawsuit.  Lilly was sued for $117,000 over a dispute involving the sale of commercial property.  As I read the documents, Lilly offered to sell, then rescinded the offer for a better deal.  It went to court and the judge decided the case and implemented a "defense cost settlement" in favor of the person not named Ann Lilly.  It was roughly $18,000 in attorneys fees Lilly paid.  It was a disputed business transaction and it happens all of the time.  

I plan on providing the documents tomorrow - I have to vet the ones I've seen through someone who knows what they are looking at.  That's something the KVIA reporter and Jaime could have done to save themselves the embarrassment of quoting a useless document as gospel.  God knows there are a lot of motions etc that go back and forth and if you don't know what you are looking at, you could look really stupid.

I think it's hilarious that Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third can't read a legal document and figure out what happened with the lawsuit.  Or, she knows what happened, but chooses to play this game in the media where she drops bombs she can't back up hoping they don't get the other side of the story. In this case, they didn't get the other side of the story from Lilly and Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third gets what she planned for.  Mainly because the reporter doesn't know what she's doing.  A seasoned reporter wouldn't have done what she did because they take offense to being used.  Ask Crowder or Negron how they view people that try to use them to settle scores - they don't like it.  It demeans their craft.

In conclusion - Jaime's "gotcha" moment turns out not to be anything but an unsigned document that proved him wrong and his enemy right.  KVIA now has to live with the fact that they took a credibility hit because their reporter has a personal relationship with the subject of one of their stories.  And Lilly still wins easily. 

Jaime would do good to copy what I do when posting documents that are probably a little over his head.  I simply post them and let the readers decide what they mean.  You keep your shoes out of your mouth when you do that.

The Story the EP Times Didn't Write

You might remember last week when the EPTimes' crack reporter Marty "I Should Know Better" Schladen wrote an article about how Cortney Niland and Adam Frank didn't break the law, but spent the better part of 1,000 words speaking hypothetically about how they could have had they done things completely different than the way they did them.  What you won't remember is the article he wrote on the candidate who actually has multiple questionable donations.  You won't remember because he didn't write that article.  Here's what he missed along with my thoughts.

Mayela Mejia garnered the El Paso Times endorsement even though it's apparent that she's an uneducated welfare queen with an employment history at the city that is poor at best.  The next time the EP Times preaches about better jobs and better education in our city, remember they promoted the dumb, purposely poor person over the educated and employed DOCTOR.  Nothing says "we want a better El Paso" by continuing to support people who represent the problems with El Paso and El pasoans through their own enthusiastic pursuit of taxpayer funded failure in life.  Screw DR. Noe and his self-sufficient lifestyle and his rampant hiring of El Pasoans and providing them benefits - he's the asshole.  PEOPLE WHO TRY/WORK HARD SUCK!

Where was I before I called a gynecologist an asshole?

I remember - the missed story about Mejia.

Mejia's 30 day before election campaign finance report was available to Marty "I Should Know Better" Schladen at the very same time, on the very same page as Cortney Niland's, but he ignored it last week.  That's too bad because there's some good stuff in that report.  And by "good stuff," I mean "a hell of a lot more questionable than the completely legal in-kind contribution that Adam Frank gave to Cortney Niland."

Below you will find three donations that appear on her campaign finance report and my questions (thoughts) about them. Get the report by clicking ---> Download Mejia 30 day

EP Four Amigos

I don't know anyone named "EP Four Amigos." That would be an odd name to give a kid. I have to assume that "EP Four Amigos" is some kind of company.  On Mejia's campaign finance report, this company (I don't know what kind of company it is, but it's worth asking if you're going to reverse engineer Adam Frank back to River Oaks without any reason what-so-ever to do so other than pure spite) provides an in-kind donation of a campaign office.  Usually the person providing an in-kind campaign office writes themselves a lease and pays the lease back to their company out of their personal funds.  If "EP Four Amigos" is a soul proprietorship, then you have no problem.  However, the question was asked of one candidate and not another - why didn't the EP Times ask both?

Again, if you're going to question in-kind contributions from individuals (which are 100% legal), why aren't you going to question one by a faceless company of some kind? 

You might remember that "EP Four Amigos" was listed in the complaint against Lyda Ness-Garcia-Ourladyguadalupe-Hernandez-the third.

Mexus Group

The "Mexus Group" gave Mejia $500 on April 7, 2011.  I really didn't know anything about "Mexus Group" other than I thought (again) it was an odd name for a person.  Turns out that "Mexus Group" isn't a person, but some kind of communications company - I think.  Again, we're given nothing more than a name of what appears to be a business. 

The clue that led me to what I think is the answer appeared in a blurb on the El Paso Times' website today about a guy named Ralph Adame calling the President of the United State of America "el vato."  As embarrassingly idiotic, dumb, stupid, moronic, disrespectful etc. et al that the statement from Adame is, it's a lot more revealing that he's identified as the "chief executive officer of Mexus Communications in El Paso."

Ralph Adame is a never-was that turns other people into never-gonna-bes.  He fancies himself as "connected," but has often been caught going between two candidates stealing info from one and giving it to another.  I know the Dee Margo camp doesn't like Adame one bit.  He's a jackass and I have stories to back that title up.  He's just the kind of jackass to get behind Mejia and give her a check from  "Mexus Group."  I'm not 100% sure he's behind this donation - he may not be - but it sure is worth connecting the dots. 

We really don't know who gave the donation, because the report doesn't state a "who," it states a "what."  That  "what" is "MexusGroup."  We don't know if "Mexus Group" is even "Mexus Communications" per se, but it's oddly similar.  We also don't know if "Mexus Group" is incorporated or not.  We just don't know a lot about this donation and it's suspicious.  Much more suspicious than a completely legal in-kind donation from Adam Frank to Cortney Niland.

Linbarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson

That's some collection of last names, isn't it?  Sounds like a law firm gave Mejia $300 for her campaign.  I didn't know they gave as a firm.  I hear this group does the tax collections for the City of El Paso. If Mr. Linbarger or Mr. Goggan or Mr. Blair or Mr. Sampson had given individually, I would have no questions.  When the check comes from the firm, instead of an individual, it makes me wonder what they want.  I'm sure they're only interested in El Paso's future and not in any kind of business that would effect their business like the cancellation of their contract by a city council that wants to use any one of the many many many firms located in El Paso that do the very same thing as Linbarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson.  Nope, they're just helping the dreams of a little gal from the east side come true, that's all... nothing to see here.

---------------------

In all fairness - and God knows I'm not fair and don't like to be - I looked at Dr. Noe's campaign finance report from the same period.  It looks like it was put together by that dorky kid in school who started taking math classes at UTEP in the ninth grade.  It's typed, it's orderly and it's filled with middle eastern names that aren't "Abraham" or "Malooley." The guy even pays payroll taxes foir his campaign staff!  Most people just call it contract labor and move on. 

If Dr. Noe is as put together as a city council member as his campaign finance reports are, we're in for a real treat.  Right now we have city council members who get lost on the agenda during item two. 

My Thoughts

I really thought it was a bad move to make Lyda Ness wait until after 6:00 p.m. to hear her special item.  It was posted for 9:00 a.m. and the council should have heard it then. 

Ness is a practicing attorney and I'm sure she did have to move at least a couple of things around to accommodate her delayed item. 

Next time they should honor the posted time. 

and that's all I have to say about that.

A Blind Item for the EP Times

Last week when the Times was frying the reputations of a candidate and a business man with hypothetical scenarious that obviously never took place, they missed the real story.

Which district five candidate took money from three corporations and got an in-kind contribution from limited partnership whose principal has gotten another candidate in trouble for how he gave money?  Looks like the real story was across town and the EP Times missed it!  The letters "LLC" appear clearly on the campaign finance report along with a certain "group" and another known local business. 

I guess the person's who tell Schladen what to write about whom didn't want him to write about this candidate. 

Ness' Investigation You're Paying For... Maybe

Let's cut to the chase because I need some sleep.

Lyda Ness didn't file a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission over her evidence that alleged Ann Lilly was using a 10th floor copier for campaign purposes. However, she did file an open records request with the city hoping to find emails sent or received by Lilly containing any one of a large list of nouns... a weird, paranoid, doing someone else's work list of nouns. 

Well guess what?  The vague terms came back with emails numbering in the tens of thousands.  The price to produce all of this was quoted north of $2,000.  Well, that's what I was told a week ago.  This week someone told me it's closer to $4,000.  Remember these numbers.

Since Ness isn't too fond of sending the government money, she decided she'd take another route to her final destination.  When you file a open records request you are expected to pay the cost to produce whatever is you're looking for.  The government can't charge unfair prices to scare you away.  You can also claim that the information you are trying to obtain is for a "public good" and see if the body of government you seek the production of documents from will provide them at their (taxpayer's) own cost. 

Tomorrow there's a special city council meeting slated for 9:00 a.m.  None of you know this because you'd have to look under the tab "special city council meetings" to find it.  Also, President Obama is in town and you probably wouldn't care if they were executing witches in council chambers tomorrow - you're not going to the bonfire, you're going to see the president speak.  

Ness' special meeting is to discuss whether or not $4,000 in your taxes are going to fund her personal investigation of Representative Lilly among other people (like Dee Margo and Joe Moody).  Ness claims that the documents will benefit the general public... I'm not sure how, but that's why they're having the meeting - to let her persuade them in that direction. 

I think if Ness thinks there's some hanky-panky going on with Lilly, she needs to file the complaint and let the Texas Ethics Commission conduct the investigation.  There's no need for us to pay for her initial investigation only to have the Texas Ethics Commission force our city to reproduce all those documents again for their investigation.  Remember, they don't generally accept "evidence" from the complainant when an original can be obtained from a fellow governmental agency. 

If Ness is successful in getting the fee waived, I wonder what she's going to do to make the tens of thousands of pieces of paper available to the public.  Printing something like that will run you quite a sum.  And posting it in on a wall in public would be impractical.  What public benefit would we (the public) get out of her and her friend's personal investigation of a select few people including Ness' campaign manager's wife? 

I think this is a publicity stunt that has been ruined by the Obama visit.  Ness' odd question to Lilly about the open records request on KVIA's candidate forum now makes more sense.  It came out of left field, but that's because the left fielder knew there would be a special city council meeting in which Lilly would be voting on whether or not to give Ness her mountain of data for free.  If Lilly votes "no," she's a liar.  If Lilly abstains, she's a liar.  If Lilly votes "yes," she kills Ness' game.  I say Lilly should vote "yes" because we know that the rest of council is voting "no" anyhow.  That way Lilly beats her at her own game.

Maybe Ness should just ask one of her ultra rich donors to pick up the tab...

Yep, that's right - Ness was oh so concerned with Lilly's contributions from rich developers, but failed to admit that none other than Gerald Rubin, Mike Dipp and a Malooley are her supporters.  Looks like Ness has some explaining to do when it comes to her criticism of Lilly's donors.

Also of note on her 8 day out report is David Bingham.  He's the guy who got her in trouble the last time she ran.  He's also a big supporter of Mayela Mejia's. 

This is all very interesting... to bad you'll be glued to the TV watching the president speak.

Jaime's Rub - Pots and Kettles

My buddy Jaime is having a rough go of it lately and is quite angry with me for exposing his star candidate as a not so great choice for public office.  He even took the time to stop obsessing over Tom Brown's slate of candidates to write a little special something to me.  His anger clouded his judgement and now I have to point out where he's wrong.

We must first come to an understanding about what Jaime does with his blog and what I do with mine.  Jaime actually picks candidates, advises them, props them up on his blog and attacks their enemies on that same blog.  His relationship with the candidates are face to face, over the phone and through email.  He nothing short of a campaign staffer for those he chooses to make kings.  After all, Jaime is a "king maker" and kings he will make.

I, on the other hand, do not talk to candidates unless I have a prior personal relationship with them.  I don't advise people on running for office.  I don't plot with them at their headquarters.  I don't care to know them in any way.  I happen to know Cortney Niland and I've known her for quite some time (four years for those keeping score at home).  When she wanted to run for Beto's seat I was in a primary against County Commissioner Dan Haggerty.  She asked me what she should do and I gave her Morris Pittle's number, wished her luck and went about eating my prime rib (I was at dinner). 

Here's an email exchange initiated by Dr. Noe as proof.  I edited out his phone number and the doctor who told me about him because I'm not going to call that doctor and ask him permission to drag him into this. 

Dr. Noe to David K (Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 11:58 AM):

If you ever want to talk, feel free to give me a call.  Jaime does.  255-9XXX.

Noe

David K to Dr. Noe (Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:10 PM):

Dr. Noe,
 
I'm glad you gave me your contact info... however, I don't usually talk to candidates or politicians directly - it clouds my perception of them (not a good thing to disagree politically with someone you like personally and have a blog dealing with the subjects I deal with) and I don't want anyone thinking I want something from them. 
 
The fact is, if you win - and I think you probably will (don't pay too much attention to my prediction of Mejia's win - she reads that and it makes her lazy) and one day you'll see a contract with my company's name on it when you're on council and I don't want there to be any conflicts of interest.
 
Also, Jaime wants something from you - not today, not tomorrow, but someday he will.  He cover his bases.  I'm not like that. 
 
Dr. XXXX vouched for you and that's all I needed to hear.  Keep working hard and stay out of the mud (where I reside). 
 
David

Dr. Noe to David K (Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 8:42 PM)

Understood.  Chris thinks pretty highly of you too.
Mike

-----------------------

That's how I conduct myself with people running for office.  Jaime doesn't draw that line and has no desire to do so.  However, he hates being called out for being "in the can" for a candidate.  My advice to him is to stop having any relations with all candidates and he won't have to worry about it.  This election he started out "in the can" for Ness, Mejia and Villanueva.  Mejia's people pushed Jaime away.  Villanueva was too hopeless to help.  Ness is his only hope and he's fallen into every trap I've laid for him on the subject. 

I try to pay the guy a compliment about his knowledge of the nuts and bolts of each campaign in town and he gets mad when I pick up some dirt he either didn't get or decided not to use.  Then he accuses me of not naming the person whose name I don't know because that person is working for a candidate in another race!  What?

The real story is that I got an email (or 23 of them) saying that Ness' treasurer quit.  I didn't know her name (I'm assuming it isn't Kristen Prerez since she filed that last report for Ness), but I knew that whoever she was, she left.  Jaime may have had something he was tending to, but he had no intention of relating the bad news within his candidate's campaign team.  After all, he has left out all of the things I have stated about Ness during his "coverage" of the District 1 race.  He was all to happy to report the shaky hearsay about Lilly's supposed used of a 10th floor copier for campaign purposes.

How does Jaime point fingers at me for doing anything he isn't already doing?  I guess he can be "in the can" for a candidate, but nobody else can?  If I was going to bitch at another blogger for doing what I do best, I'd... well I wouldn't cast a stone! I wouldn't do it!

What is worse is Jaime's BS whining where he compares the careless actions of a bona fide newspaper journalist (Marty "I should know better" Schladen) to my neatly laid trap I caught him in.   You might remember when I posted a long missive on Ness' past problems with various entities and posted all the links to the official documents.  You might also remember that after 1,000 words focused on the facts, I threw out a two bit rumor I heard from some of her law colleagues.  Guess which part Jaime lost his mind over?  The part nobody cared about - the supposed "married to two men" scandal that has nothing to do with anything.  All of a sudden he was being fed documents from Ness herself and it proved to the world that Jaime was serving as Ness' personal attack dog.  Actually, it wasn't the world that I sought to prove his connections to her campaign to - it was a mutual friend who didn't believe that Jaime was in the can for Ness.  He never figured out how I set the trap on him.

Jaime is always the one who would say on his show "I'm not a journalist, I'm a blogger."  Well, it looks like David K ("me" for those of you who are drinking and reading) isn't held to the same standard.  I run a blog, but must be a journalist at all times!  Jaime, not so much... How does that work? He doesn't realize the difference between what standards a newspaper reporter are held to and the nonexistent standards bloggers are held to. 

Of course, he takes the time to do what he accused me of doing in his blog post when he mentions that he heard a rumor that Ann Lilly had been arrested.  Sadly, he's so desperate to help Ness win that he contradicts his entire rant against me... in his rant against me.

Jaime doesn't have to be fair to the candidates.  I don't have to be fair to the candidates.  To whine and cry because I'm just as unfair as he is on his blog is ridiculous. 

--------------------------

In honor of Jaime's anger at my writing about his candidate, we're going to write more about his candidate!

Hear all about how she wants you to pay for her investigation of Ann Lilly and how she's taking money from the very rich people she claims own Ann Lilly.  It's a "pot and kettle" extravaganza here tonight with Jaime and Lyda as our honored guests.

(Would someone tell Lyda that if she'd stop using Jaime as an attack dog that I'd stop writing about her?  I gave Jaime every piece of incriminating evidence I had on Ness over a month ago and told him that if she backed off the negative stuff and told her people stop showcasing their low IQ on my comments section that I'd never use the info.  Tell them that this isn't about supporting Lilly, but instead exposing Ness.)

District 1 KVIA Debate

I caught the debate between the many candidates for District 1 on KVIA this morning.  It was not all that exciting with the only persons getting miffed at any point were Besco and Ness. 

I can run down each person's performance here.

Tim Besco - The giant Man-child flubbed the first question and never recovered.  He's just a terrible speaker and has little or no command of the issues.  His understanding of anything is only skin deep.  After hearing his view points it's impossible for him to claim he's "conservative."  He spouted some very liberal view points.

Manny Hinojosa - Was stuck on some weird concept about a website and I never really picked up anything else from him.  I hope people don't mistake his ability to speak clearly for actual mental stability.

Representative Ann Morgan Lilly - Typical Ann.  She's the same person she's always been.  She did use her one question to another candidate on Besco and tripped him up severely.  She asked Besco because he's the clear #2 in this race.   Her question to Besco sparked an odd answer from Ness who attacked approximately 75 percent of her district by demeaning folks who earn lots of money... more on this next.

Lyda Ness - Pretty, well spoken and wears assertiveness on her face - all good things for a candidate.  Grasp of the issues?  Fair.  When asked what ordinance she'd repeal she referred to a piece of what is essentially a master plan... I guess she didn't want to answer the question or didn't know the difference between an ordinance and a master plan.  Her answer served to spark the others down the line to give idiotic, misinformed answers that closely copied hers (there's a save the valley theme here that I'll take up at the end).

Ness talked about the city being closed Friday and how that connects to the city being anti-business.  It showed that she really doesn't get what the issue with the city being anti-business is about.  It's not their hours... It's many other easily identifiable actions taken by council and by staff.  If not being able to pull a permit on Friday was the city's worst transgression, we'd be in a lot different place here in El Paso.  To her credit - nobody on the panel was any clearer on the issue than she was. 

On Transmountain she gave probably the worst answer other than "no, I'm against it."  I take that back - a straight "no" would have been ten times better than the answer she gave.  She said she was for the widening, but only up to Ressler... What?  That does nothing but create MORE PROBLEMS! Her answer allowed her to be both "for" and "against" the Transmountain project.  I guess she runs across people dumb enough to believe that idea will work.  She already lost the endorsement of the greenies, why didn't she just switch her position completely to "for" and garner the support of the majority of the people in her district.  Remember, it's highly likely that by a 9 to 1 margin people are for the project.  She had the worst answer on that question because she took neither side and her solution wasn't well thought out.  She's trying to play both sides and it's not working.

Ness was right where you thought she'd be on the domestic partner benefits question, but completely reversed herself in an argument with Tim Besco.  The gay benefits question was a "yes" or "no"  only question - Ness said "yes."  At the end of the debate the candidates were invited to ask each other a question.  Besco asked Ness how she could be "objective" when it comes to the gay benefits issue since she's named on the lawsuit and started an entire organization on based on gay rights for gay El Pasoans. This question visibly pissed Ness off and I don't think anyone could understand why.  What she ended up admitting is that she didn't think that city should pay for anyone but the employee's health insurance... which means she filed a lawsuit to fix a problem she wants to do away with completely.  It was strange and made me wonder if she understood what she was saying and how benefit programs work.  Really, this lady is involved in a major lawsuit with the city and I'm not sure she knows why. 

She closed the performance out by asking Lilly an odd question about fulfilling her open records request.  I think it was an attempt to bring up the BS story about Lilly using city resources for her campaign.  The attempt failed miserably and left viewers confused.  Most people don't know what an opern records request is, and that means they didn't catch Ness' lack of knowledge on the subject as well.  No representative has any say over open records requests.  Lilly can't say "no, you can't have my emails."  She wasn't even asked.  The IT department works on this specific request and from what I understand already provided a cost to comply with the request.  The cost is north of $2,000.  The jab at Lilly was lost on the audience.

Abe Peinado - The big contradiction.  Is for business, but against the single biggest business project within reach for El Paso.  Poor Peinado was run by the downtown property owners and then abandoned when they saw Ness as more viable.   Peinado was confident in what he was saying, but he's all over the place when he's not talking about the construction blanket bond.  Peinado will be a great elected official one day, just not this year. 

Rick Schecter - Probably the candidate who best fits my city politics.  He was smart, on point and obviously very informed.  It's a shame he doesn't get more support. 

Dr. Ware-Asbury - Nice lady.  Not sure what she's for or against.

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My final thoughts...

Save the Valley controls about 20 to 40 votes.  You'd think they were the only ones in the district who vote at all by listening to all the candidates bow to their Redd Road demands.  Save the Valley really made an impact on these candidates and they really shouldn't have. 

There's a thing in Washington we called "Screaming Monkeys and a Roaring Lions."  The phrase was coined by a consultant I worked with on grassroots outreach.  His premise was simple:

Screaming Monkeys - make lots of noise, but have little to back it up.

Roaring Lions - deep, slow roars with the ability to back it up.

The premise was simple - some groups make a lot of noise, but aren't all that really powerful in delivering the consequences.  Others make less noise, but pack a bigger punch. 

Save the Valley are screaming monkeys.  In all the years they've been around they've been unable to elect anyone to carry their water.  It seems as if they scare the weak candidates into following their rules, but really have nothing to offer when it comes to getting those candidate elected.  Again this cycle, they'll lose even though they put the fear of God into all of the candidates except one. 

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The business issue at the city is sorely misunderstood by just about every single person who isn't in the business world.  The slate of candidates this cycle show that lip service is about as deep as the issue goes.  None of them really have a grasp of what it means to be "anti-business," but they're sure it's bad and they are confident they'll change the tide at city hall. 

Excuse me if I don't believe that a guy who can't add or subtract, but claims to be a carpenter, won't build me a quality house. You can say something all day long, but it won't make the statement true.  You have to understand the issue before you take a side. 

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I had a lot more to write, but it's movie time...

Slow News Day? Slow Reporter...

Marty "I Should Know Better" is at it again.  This time he's a "One Man Wolf-pack" and he's out to eat Cortney Niland for dinner. 

His piece on the EP Times today is so journalistic unethical it's laughable.  His second paragraph declares that an illegal act has taken place because she received an "in-kind" contribution from River Oaks properties.  WOW!  He got her!  Well... not really.

Turns out that the in-kind contribution came from Adam Frank, the President of River Oaks. Campaign finance reports indicate this situation clearly and it's a very common practice (although it's plain dumb and I advise people against it because morons like Schladen don't understand how it works).  So Schladen's premise is false and based on what his imagination has invented. 

Because Schladen is aware that no laws were broken and that there's nobody other himself making "questions arise," he spends the whole rest of the article asking hypothetical questions based on hypothetical situations.  Again, no laws have been broken here in reality and he admits as much.  Why he was allowed to write an article where the meat of it is based on him bouncing hypothetical situations off of  Texas Ethics Commission attorneys is beyond me.  He rips up Niland based on "what if" scenarios and it's a load of crap.

Here's how the questions go as I see them:

Schladen:  "Soooo... if this candidate did something she didn't do and it was specifically this type of action that she didn't do, did she break the law?" 

Because I know how to read, I picked up on the game very quickly.  Schladen is a half-assed reporter who built his story around events that never happened.  On top of it, he's got no complainant to get a qoute from.  How come?  Because there is no complainant.  Schladen was just looking through campaign finance reports and invented this little problem all on his own.  And because he's ignorant to the laws, he had to change his article to be based solely on hypotheticals and trashes Niland and Frank's reputations in the process.  That's a bad reporter.... but what do you expect for $7.50 an hour?  Nobody else will take the job.

Most El Paso Times readers won't be able decipher what is the truth in the article and what is Schladen's attempt at saving face because his big story isn't actually so big.  That's a shame and it's a testament to the crap they print in this town.  Lyda Ness doesn't pay her taxes to the tune of $190,000 and she gets a pass with "I had a bad accountant" and Niland has a legal in-kind donation and gets fried with an article declaring her donor's company guilty of breaking campaign finance laws... You've got to be kidding me. 

Also bad is that Schladen has no idea that there's a difference between "smart growth" and "smart code." He uses "smart growth" when the conversation is actually about "smart code."  Had Schladen not spent hours on the phone with the Texas Ethics Commission bouncing hypothetical crimes off of them and about ten minutes with anyone who knows about development, he might have got the terms right.  But hey, he's a reporter who letan infamous local attorney stand over his shoulder and write his stories for him - he's not smart and he has zero integrity - we can't expect him to get common terms correct when he's off on the hunt as the "one man wolf-pack."

I think the following sentence walks a very fine line on which libel and slander reside on one side:

"It is illegal for a private business such as River Oaks to make such "in-kind" political donations, according to the Texas Ethics Commission."

It toes the line of flat out saying that River Oaks broke the law when in fact they didn't.  I figure he'd be more careful.

Here's the kicker:

Cortney Niland and Adam Frank's wife are pretty much best friends.  They've been friends for a long time and have put on several charity events in the past.  Frank's support for Cortney is something that is organic in that his wife is deeply connected to the candidate.   It's not like the Franks went seeking Cortney.

My personal advice to all candidates is to severely limit "in-kind" contributions valued at over $100.  They are nothing but trouble when it comes to perception.  Even if you did nothing wrong, guys like Schladen will invent something to make it look wrong.