The Collin County Observer

While researching the piece on the bond package, I re-visited Keith Self's campaign website.

He campaigned on what he called his "5 Point Action Plan". How is he doing on those 5 points?

Here are the 5 Points:

Within the first 90 days after I take office as the Collin County Judge, I will take the necessary action within the Commissioners’ Court to:

1. Freeze salaries of the Collin County Commissioners’ Court.
2. Terminate longevity pay for the Collin County Commissioners’ Court.
3. Reduce the Collin County property tax rate by at least 4 percent. Since the Expenditures in the Operating Funds of the General Fund grew by 11 percent from 2004-2005 , there is fat enough to cut without hurting our capital improvements.
4. Move the Commissioners’ Court open sessions to a facility large enough to accommodate all fully-engaged citizens of Collin County who wish to participate in the open conduct of county business. Citizen input and action will be encouraged at Commissioners’ Court sessions.
5. Convene an emergency meeting of Collin County Mayors and state/regional transportation officials in order to start repairing relationships and develop a county coalition to move the Collin County transportation infrastructure into the 21st century. State Representatives and Senators will receive my personal invitation to participate in the meeting and the coalition.

#1 Freeze Salaries of the Collin County Commissioners’ Court He's frozen his own, but last week Self voted to INCREASE Commissioners salaries by 5%. I'll give him a "C-" grade on this one.

#2 Terminate longevity pay for the Collin County Commissioners’ Court Not applicable, that was decided before he took office. No grade on #2.

#3 Reduce the Collin County property tax rate by at least 4 percent. Tuesday, Self voted against holding the tax rate at 24.5 cents. He doesn't seem to have the influence to actually convince the court to cut taxes. Self gets an "D-" on cutting taxes.

#4 Move the Commissioners’ Court open sessions to a facility large enough to accommodate all fully-engaged citizens The Court STILL meets in the 6th floor broom closet, barely big enough for staff and press. Again an "F" for opening up the Court meetings.

#5 Convene an emergency meeting of Collin County Mayors and state/regional transportation officials in order to start repairing relationships Self explains in his blog that "Advocating transportation has evolved differently than I envisioned.", which is a politician's way of saying that NO emergency meeting has been convened. Grade is another "F".

Oh well, who believes campaign promises anyway?

Now in fairness, Judge Self had started to make some headway into opening up the Commissioners Court decision process. He convinced the rest of the court to hold public work sessions, and to experiment with moving some work sessions out of the courthouse and around the county.

He is holding monthly breakfasts with interested citizens. (I was invited to one of those breakfasts - Judge Self spoke of his priorities and then listened to what others had to say, all in an open and constructive manner.)

However, the court STILL meets too often in executive session. In fact it twice tried to meet in secret session to discuss elected official salaries. It still meets in a place and at a time inconvenient to the taxpayers. It still doesn't post its own minutes until a month or months later. (As of this moment, the last minutes posted are for the June 26th meeting.)

The Collin County Commissioners Court still has a ways to go in making its decision process transparent and open to the people.

Politicians have a long way to go to earn our trust.

Bill