No Seat, No Shows, No Serve Us

Quorum? Hardly even filled 'em!

Aug 27, 2024

When you get a job, it’s understood that you’ll show up. The times you can’t make it you get excused or else you’ll soon be fired.

Not so in government. You can no-show and remain on city boards for years. That’s how we get unelected bureaucrats.

Such is the case here in Waco.

You can milk a cow, but COW milks your taxes.

Yep, the deep state, the swamp, whatever you call it is in our backyard.

One board hasn’t even had a single meeting since 2020!

(Note to all aspiring politicians: sign up for the Building Inspections Advisory and Appeals Board for that useless resume puffer.)

Even those that do meet have members who’ve missed several meetings, excused or not, sometimes for years.

If these chairmen were doing their jobs, they’d be informing these members that they’ve been missing meetings, and then notifying the city council about their repeated absences to remove them under the city policies from 2021.

You see, Section 24D makes clear that “The chair shall send any member with two consecutive absences a written notice of attendance status.” That’s mandatory.

The one about how many meetings you can miss until you’re eligible for removal falls under Section 24B. Specifically, during any 12-month window anyone who misses over 25% of monthly meetings (i.e. 4 months) or quarterly meetings (i.e. 2 meetings), whether or not excused, may be removed from office or membership by City Council.

Section 24A says the same thing, only this applies to a shorter, 6-month window for over 25% of weekly (i.e. 7 meetings) or biweekly meetings (i.e. 4 meetings).

That assumes the chairman and board notify the city council and no-shows in writing.

This does not appear to be happening.

Records show people missing a lot of meetings but remaining on boards for years.

And that doesn’t even count cancelations due to no quorum.

Empty HD Template of "This is Fine" dog, or "Dog in burning house" : r/MemeTemplatesOfficial — It’s supposed to be a Waco boards and commissions attendance in summer, but this turned into the Branch Davidian compound instead.

See, Waco’s city records for its boards’, commissions’, and committees’ minutes don’t show (or require) who no-showed, which leads to a no quorum.

Instead, they’re just “canceled”.

Only the Sustainable Resource Practices Advisory Board and Parks and Recreation Advisory Boards kept attendance even without a quorum. Revisions to Sections 8 and 12 would address this issue and make it mandatory for all boards and commissions to take attendance even without a quorum.

(These rules don’t apply to City Council Committees, they only need one person from the city council for a quorum according to Section 8A.)

I planned to comment on this at the Boards & Commissions meeting yesterday to address that issue.

The problem is that they canceled the meeting for August. But at least that one wasn’t due to a lack of quorum- not that you can tell from the records.

So that’s why I’m putting this out instead since everyone will have time to review these records for the next month.

It won’t change everything Waco must do to address transparency, but it will help hold accountable those who do not show but are responsible for a part of our city.

Speaking for myself, I don’t want people on these who will fill a slot, miss most meetings, and then use these titles as a springboard for higher office just because nobody bothered to check the records.

Many of these board and commission members’ terms will end officially after September 30. The time to apply for these is now (i.e. no later than the end of August) because the city council appoints members sometime in early to mid-September.

And yes, I even included the Waco Youth Board.

(Kids, in the real world, the media will be much harsher when you’re in government. I’m just publicizing who missed how many meetings. Besides, if you’re willing to take credit for the good things so that colleges accept you, you should be willing to take credit for the bad things. If you can’t handle the scrutiny, then government isn’t for you. The world doesn’t need any more Tracy Flicks… Or maybe we do.)

OK so onto the content:

After the hyperlinked title of the board or commission, I included the frequency with which they meet (i.e. Monthly, Quarterly, etc.). “Called” means they meet whenever they feel like meeting.

The member’s name means the board member missed at least one meeting. All are in alphabetical order by surname.

All current city council members’ names are bolded.

If any board or commission member is not listed here it doesn’t mean they necessarily came to all meetings, but the public attendance records don’t show them as having missed one - whether excused or not. (There are also unexplained random gaps in the records, which Waco also needs to address.)

The first number shows how many meetings they missed in a calendar year.

The second number (“of X”) shows how many meetings they were involved in, whether present or absent/excused. Canceled meetings and non-recorded times don’t count toward this number, but if they counted absences without quorum they’re included.

Note that these may be wrong as the charts are wildly inconsistent and difficult to follow (i.e. some are two years run together, members may be listed on multiple lines, and some meetings are listed twice). This is a problem with inconsistent city government records which Waco needs to improve.

Some members got appointed partway through a term which explains some divergence. (It would help if each board and commission attendance chart showed their term start date.)

How many are excused are listed with an E in parentheses, otherwise, these are unexcused absences listed with an A in parentheses.

Consecutive is italicized to indicate that this person missed two meetings in a row, whether or not they were excused. They should have been notified in writing.

I included the consecutive to include crossover between years (i.e. Dec-Jan), but sometimes there were long stretches of absences. This is why it would help if we had consistent formatting of attendance records.

It’s also worth noting that under the current city policies, “consecutive” does not explain if that should include when a meeting is canceled. In other words, if a person misses the meeting before a canceled meeting – which itself may be canceled because that person skipped and couldn’t make a quorum, but we don’t know – and also the meeting after the canceled meeting, then does that count as consecutive? I don’t know, and these policies aren’t clear. I erred on the side of caution and didn’t count absences as consecutive if a cancellation fell between, but if these are to be included the numbers are worse than they appear.

If you find mistakes, notify me and I’ll correct them promptly.

Also, most records are from Mid-2021 to July 2024, but what I got varies wildly.

For the records, I got whatever the city sent me. Any boards, committees, and commissions not listed are because the city didn’t provide them with the records request. I can’t tell whether they forgot to send me these or copies don’t exist.

Raw files are added after the committee name for your records comparison.

To improve Waco, we must have the correct information for clarity, transparency, and accountability.

Again, qualified people who want to handle our city’s issues should apply to fill these vacancies. Also please consider attending the Boards and Commissions Board meetings and commenting to get them to improve Waco’s records transparency and update these policies that need clarification and enforcement.

Monty Python Get On With It GIFs | Tenor

Animal Welfare Board (Monthly)

Josh Borderud = 2 of 2 in 2023 (2 A) & 2 consecutive; 9 of 10 in 2022 (4 E, 5 A) & 7 consecutive

James Trey Buzbee = 4 of 11 in 2022 (4 E) & 3 consecutive

Dr. Valerie Coerver = 5 of 6 in 2023 (5 A) & 3 consecutive; 5 of 11 in 2022 (1 E, 4 A) & 4 consecutive

Wes Cole = 3 of 4 in 2024 (3 A) & 2 consecutive; 2 of 5 in 2023 (2 A) & 2 consecutive

Mary Evans = 2 of 11 in 2022 (1 E, 1 A)

Monika Fincher = 2 of 4 in 2024 (2 A)

Kandi Hillyer = 1 of 7 in 2022 (1 E)

Esmerelda Hudson = 1 of 4 in 2024 (1 A); 2 of 8 in 2023 (2 A); 1 of 6 in 2022 (1 A)

Carrie Kuehl = 1 of 4 in 2024 (1 A)

Zane M Litle = 1 of 7 in 2023 (1 A)

Patricia Miller = 2 of 2 in 2023 (2 A) & 2 consecutive; 8 of 8 in 2023 (2 E, 6 A) & 7 consecutive

Sarah Moran = 6 of 10 in 2022 (2 E, 4 A) & 4 consecutive

Michelle Nemec = 3 of 8 in 2023 (3 A); 2 of 12 in 2022 (2 A)

Cody Nethery = 1 of 3 in 2024 (1 A); 3 of 5 in 2023 (3 A) & 2 consecutive

Jillian Ohriner = 2 of 2 in 2023 (2 A)

Aubrey Robertson = 1 of 6 in 2023 (1 A); 1 of 12 in 2022 (1 E)

Melissa Sheldon = 1 of 4 in 2024 (1 A)

Tiffany Vidana = 2 of 4 in 2024 (2 A); 1 of 8 in 2023 (1 A); 1 of 12 in 2022 (1 A)

2024 Animal Welfare Member Attendance Report

412KB ∙ PDF file

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Quorum? Hardly even filled 'em!

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