Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Boy, is my face red ..... When I support someone for public office, I usually admonish them that I want only one thing after they get elected. They have to promise not to embarrass me. This has happened more times than I care to admit--elected officials embarrassing me--and the latest to join the lineup is Fort Bend County Treasurer Jeannie Parr. Parr's fiduciary acumen was called to task by a group no less altruistic than the Needville 4-H club, a group whose sole goal is to teach kids responsibility, animal husbandry, and provide educational opportunities in the form of scholarships. You'll see a more detailed story elsewhere in this newspaper, but suffice it to say that Parr is guilty at the very least of poor records management. Well, excuse me, isn't that the very job we hired her to do? I could just wring her neck and I apologize to the voters I convinced to vote for her.

I guess he didn't like the job after all ... Judge Bradley Smith, after serving four short years, has announced his retirement next year. You remember Judge Smith. He's the guy who convinced Republican precinct chairs to nominate him over then-Governor Bush's choice for the new district judgeship--Vickie Pinak. Pinak served for about eight months (ably, I've heard) before having to leave the bench to Smith. Now Judge Smith has decided he doesn't like the job that much after all and says, "The job of District Judge has unfortunately become frustratingly more administrative. It seems as if I spend half of my time in meetings rather than on the bench."

Judge Smith also faced a formidable foe in the person of Cliff Vacek who has a $100,000 war chest and name ID left over from his close race against John Healey for District Attorney.

I'm sorry, but I think it's time we had either a minority or a women on a Fort Bend district judge bench...... and I've heard that Pinak is interested.

From all accounts, Smith was doing a good job. Worked hard, lawyers thought he was fair. But maybe he was just tired; tired of all the wrangling that's going on in the judiciary now. They all want associate judges and yet I hear that half the time they aren't working. What's up with that?

The state puts out a six inch thick report every year about our Texas judiciary. Of course it includes Fort Bend. I'm going to get my hands on that, wade through it, and report the facts of who is doing what.

Won't that be fun?

Doesn't it just burn you out? ..... Just about the time we all received notices of the assessment of our property, the web site that lets us look up comparable prices of property next door or elsewhere in the county was closed down. The Central Appraisal District claimed it was hit by lightning. Yeah, I think it was probably hit by the lightning of all the mad taxpayers.

Don't pat yourself on the back and think you have made a smart investment just because your property values have increased. That increase will cause you to have to pay higher taxes across the board, even if the taxing entities don't increase their tax rates one iota.

And another thing, the person that you deal with at the CAD has been trained to act like that. He/she has taken lessons in intimidation, coercion, browbeating, and bullying. Sweetly ignore it but remain firm, even if you have to slam your hand on the table.

Okay, what was that all about? ..... You've probably read elsewhere in this paper where Commissioner Andy Meyers introduced a resolution, seconded by County Judge Bob Hebert, that went down in flames. The resolution was in support of redistricting in Texas. What a lot of people are mad about is that a special session costs about a million dollars and there are so many other problems that Texas needs to deal with in a special session besides redistricting.

Plus the redistricting undertaken two years ago was drawn by a Republican majority panel of state officeholders. What they're all mad about is that Republicans were supposed to win more seats after the redistricting two years ago, and some of them didn't because some of those old Democratic legislators had good relations with their Republican constituencies which crossed over and elected them anyway. Now they want to flat take away those districts.

But come to find out, after Andy's failed resolution, he and State Representative Charlie Howard had a redistricting rally at a local church (how appropriate?) and Charlie forgot why they were there and started preaching for the Supreme Court to be impeached.