The content below was originally posted as a comment on Pete Oppel’s blog, “The Kyle TX Report“, by former City Council candidate (and current commission member), Joe Bacon, in response to an article written about the charter review process. Mr. Bacon granted The Kyle Life permission to reprint his comment here on our site and it is below in it’s entirety:
Everyone please just take a breath and relax.
As a member of the commission I can assure you that I will push for as many opportunities as possible for the public to make comments and suggestions to the new City Charter. And if I have any input, every meeting will have an agenda item…”Citizens Comments”. If you will please keep your comments within the norm of 3 minutes and keep your comments relevant to the City Charter.
As to the future of ALL meetings being scheduled on the same night as City Council meetings…not likely. The first meeting was scheduled for April 7th simply because we seemed to be stalled on setting the next meeting date and I looked at my calendar and picked that date.
I would be overjoyed if the citizens of Kyle would get involved and voice their opinions. Unfortunately in Kyle we have a very small percentage of eligible voters that care enough or who are engaged enough to even go to the polls. Generally the turn out for elections ranges from 4%-10%. My post today will bring the total number of comments regarding past posts to 14. And 3 of those 14 posts were regarding the Charter Review Commission. That is 21.4% of all the comments going back to October of last year. [Editor’s Note: Mr. Bacon is referring to the amount of comments on Mr. Oppel’s blog, The Kyle TX Report.]
I am pleased that Mr. Oppel ,who is relatively new to Kyle, is using his media experience to help to stimulate awareness and discussion regarding Kyle’s city government. His posts are a pleasant blend of reporting and editorializing. I believe they are intended to create awareness and stimulate dialog.
And as his blog represents….”One person’s view of Kyle’s city government.”
Joe Bacon
Alright, I’ll take a breath, but who is this “everyone” you speak of? Your comments about the low voter turnout, lack of community input and scarce-as-hen’s-teeth comments on Mr. Oppel’s blog indicates to me that you believe “everyone” is doing something else other than expressing interest in the charter review process.
The latest blog posts and comments in Kyle Life have captured my interest and I’ve gone back for a careful re-reading of “An Uneasy Feeling…” in particular. In my opinion, (and that makes two opinions instead of one, since you’re counting), his suggestions on terminology, scheduling, process and actively seeking input are all sound recommendations. He sounds pretty smart.
He also sounds like he was reporting accurately and none of his points have been refuted to date. If his observations on the Charter Review process warranted an internal memo to round up the wagons and necessitated a Letter to the Editor in response, why did none of that correspondence address the core concerns he outlined?
It’s true. As you pointed out, Mr. Oppel is relatively new to the community. But I bet he votes.