Tuesday evening, Dec. 1st, at the regular council meeting, Councilman Chris Rodriguez took Councilwoman Leslie LaCorte to task for having voted ‘no’ to approve his latest absence at the last council meeting. That action which prompted a mention in the Whitehall News along with a retort from Chris Rodriguez. In his prepared remarks Councilman Rodriguez essentially lambasted LaCorte, calling her actions “sour grapes” because he endorsed her opponent (Kim Maggard) and stated that Ward 1 residents were fully apprised of his job constraints when they elected him back into the Ward 1 seat in 2013. (As a Ward 1 resident I saw no such literature nor heard any such information in 2013) He also said that he serves the residents of Ward 1 well.                                                                         As soon as the council meeting was finished I went up to Mr. Rodriguez at the dais and reminded him of the letter I’d sent him, dated Sept.3rd, asking for his resignation based on his attendance record. He suggested my letter’s timing was political (Which he then apparently used as an excuse to not respond to my simple and respectful request). I reminded him that I am a Ward 1 resident and he chose not to respond to me either by mail or phone. He mentioned some remark he’d made alluding to my letter as if it were in the paper or something and I told him I’d never seen any such response. Regardless, a constituent who takes the time to write and mail their elected representative a letter deserves the respect of a response, if not in kind, then at least, at all. I then told him he was disingenuous for making it seem as though Leslie were the only one bringing the issue of his lacks attendence up in light of the information I had just reminded him of. He said, “See, there ya go.” Given Mr. Rodriguez’ prepared remarks then, let me offer up a few bits of information as rebuttal to the case made by him for his position; that he does such a terrific job for Ward 1 citizens.

Firstly, here is the letter I sent him;

As you can well see, it is clear, concise and respectful. This isn’t calling into question his record of service as a representative, it is just based on truth and truth alone. By his own admission he has missed alot and I feel, as a citizen and Ward 1 resident, that it has become wrong for him to continue to occupy the seat given the amount of time he’s missed. Do the right thing and step down honorably, allowing another resident (not me)* to take the seat who can give to the citizens the time their situations and needs and wants deserve. Apparently though, as I’ve stated so often in this blog, because its me, Gerald Dixon, and because I’ve been critical of him and his donor friends in City Hall in the past, then anything I bring up is ignored regardless of its solid truth. Truth is the truth is the truth and a wrong is a wrong is a wrong, regardless of who serves it up. As such then, it seems Mr. Rodriguez is less concerned with abiding by the truth and doing the right thing than he is with his own feelings and interests and allegiance to ‘The Family’, exactly as I keep shouting from the rooftops. (Apparently I’m gonna have to buy a bullhorn next!) This is why I was then compelled to reveal publicly, in my post regarding Mayor Maggard’s endorsements, that I had sent the letter at all. (a full month after the date of my letter in response to his silence as well as a month and a half before Leslie LaCorte voted ‘no’ to approve his absence from council) See:

http://votedixon.com/2015/10/02/the-argument-against-mayor-maggards-endorsements/

So then, if Councilman Rodriguez chooses self and familial allegiance over truth and right then he leaves me no other choice, as a citizen and as a public clarion, to inform you exactly of what Mr. Rodriguez’ record on council is.

Firstly, there is this, from my post arguing against Mayor Maggard’s endorsements;

“Councilman Rodriguez doesn’t understand the true nature of public service. He has served so long I’ve lost count. The charter says one may serve two consecutive four-year terms. Once the last term expires, they can either be appointed if a vacancy opens up or have to wait until the election for the next seat, which could be two years. The spirit of the charter is often dismissed by running for another office halfway through the term. Mr Rodriguez has been elected, appointed and ran from Ward to at-Large and back to Ward again. Thanks in part to being appointed after he lost his run for Treasurer. It has been much more than the consecutive 2 terms of four years each. This is a quote from him in a Dispatch article from the last effort to end term limits was defeated in 2013. See if you can spot the ironic inconsistency in his statement;”

“This is the third time it’s gone down. The people want them kept in place, and we have to respect that,” said Councilman Chris Rodriguez, who was re-elected to his fourth term. “We had three races go unopposed, mine being one of them.”

FACTS SCHMACTS

The other day I sat in the Clerk of Council’s office for about two hours and went through the records of the council meetings, committee and regular council meetings, to check on who has brought forward legislation and what the attendance record has been. As far as attendance of Mr. Rodriguez (that which I had noticed long before I became a candidate for Council at-Large in 2015) I went back to January of 2012 when he’d been appointed back to his old Ward 1 seat after losing his bid for the Auditor’s job to Dan Miller. He later ran, unopposed, for that same seat and, obviously, won it in Nov. 2013. So, January 2012 was where I started.

There are essentially 48 meetings to attend in a year. I started my count on the 17th of that month as that seemed to be Rodriguez’ first meeting back after his appointment so, as such, for 2012, he had the opportunity to attend 46 meetings. The following years, ’13, ’14 and ’15 were all the normal 48. This is a grand total for 4 years of 190 meetings (to the end of Dec. 2015). Of those 190, per the public record,Councilman Rodriguez has missed 76 meetings…76! To put that number into context, that amounts to 19 missed per year or nearly 5 months out of the 12, every year. It is nearly half the meetings, totaling over a year and a half of missed meetings for which he still received a paycheck from the taxpayer’s pockets. In 2012 and ’13 he was making $4000 a year. In 2014, after he was duly elected on his own, his salary went up to $4600 a year. Balancing the two sums against the amount of time he missed (His attendance actually decreased after 2012 but for the sake of argument for this post we’ll divide it equally, even though he made less in 2012) the amount of taxpayer dollars that Councilman Rodriguez has taken for doing absolutely nothing in return, is $6451. Free money, straight from the citizen’s pockets. And so, given these facts, straight out of the record itself, it is Lelsie LaCorte and myself who are wrong here, per Councilman Rodriguez? So, the truth doesn’t exist? Doing the right thing, as outlined in my letter to him, is not the priority for Councilman Rodriguez? The reality and facts and truth of his situation are washed clean simply because he claims Councilwoman LaCorte and I brought up this truth for political reasons? Seems convenient for him. I think he’s the one with the sour grapes due to the fact that we brought this to the public’s attention in the first place, those who, in not paying attention, didn’t know this situation existed. Of course now it makes him look bad, and rightfully so.                                                                                       Mr. Rodriguez is not guilty of having a job or having it be so busy that he can’t make meetings he might otherwise have been at. No. He is guilty because he chose not to do anything despite the clarity of the situation as it was right there in his and everybody else’s faces, where its wrong and its conflict was as clear as a bell. And…all this while continuing to take the citizens money for it. Wrong. wrong, wrong. Guilty, guilty, guilty. (As it was for the rest of council who had the ability to do something about this wrong but chose not to. Everybody looked the other way and nobody did anything in light of this wrongdoing. Choosing their friendships and associations with Councilman Rodriguez over ethics and doing right by the citizens who they’re supposed to be there for). Shame all around for that one.

For this alone, he should resign.

I also looked at the legislative record, to see if he was creating legislation, as is made such a big deal of when people are running for office. If someone has created zero legislation, they’re deemed lazy, careless, bad legislators. (For the record I believe a legislator is there if legislation is needed or something merits it or they have an excellent idea but, shouldn’t be done just to do so or because ‘legislator’ is right there in your title. We have enough laws on the books strangling us daily, we don’t need legislation just to please others politically or to please your own ego. That is actually a bad legislator)

There are apparently two types of legislation, one is repealing some or all of past legislation or creating ordinances/laws (as best I’ve been able to understand it). The other is ‘resolutions’. These generally don’t have teeth and seem to generally be used to recognize citizens and entities and create things. Mr. Rodriguez used a resolution to recognize a citizen, as did Ms. LaCorte. Councilperson Conison has used resolutions to recognize the wrestling team and Toastmasters. As such then, for this examination, I am not including these as ‘legislation’ as there were no laws made or something was done to better the community through those laws. So then, going back to 2010, Councilmans Dan Miller and Larry Morrison are the only two who ever introduced legislation individually. Not one other ever has. There were several legislative actions put forth in a group effort (When every council member jumped on one, I outcluded it from this analysis) There were three pieces of legislation that Councilman Bailey introduced with others, one of which was Mr. Rodriguez. It had to do with something they had to change due to a court ruling that said no government could compel citizens to clear their sidewalks of snow. Because our laws still compelled them to do so, they had to draw up legislation recognizing the court’s decision, that which took three of them to accomplish this simple but necessary act. Kantor, Bailey and Rodriguez. Outside of this, since 2010, Councilman Rodriguez has brought forth zero legislation on his own to help out Ward 1 citizens. Dan Miller introduced two pieces of legislation alone in his short time on council! Otherwise to round it out and for clarity, Bailey has co-sponsored three, Kantor co-sponsored two and LaCorte, Conison and Knoblauch, none.

Conversely, after a great deal of work on my part trying to do something about massive trucks coming down small streets in the ‘Woods’ section of Whitehall, at my request, I sat down with Councilman Rodriguez to draft a change to the ‘Truck Routes’ legislation.We got the bare bones of it and after he left I solidified and finished it and delivered it to his house. He dropped it off to the city attorney’s office and I waited. After an inordinate amount of time I finally pressured the city attorney to tell me of its fate. He said, as to form, he approved it. Mr. Rodriguez wasn’t around and it didn’t seem as though this legislation for Ward 1 citizens and the rest of Whitehall was a top priority for him, so, knowing this, I told them at a council meeting he actually attended that it was finally going to be introduced (after, like, 6 months!) Mr. Rodriguez had not been apprised of my announcement as I was sick and tired of him doing nothing to push it along. If I’d waited for him to do something, nothing would have ever happened. The look on his face was priceless. I knew I’d thrown him a bombshell and he looked surprised and scrambled to look like he was a part of this decision, and of course, he had to scramble to prepare and present this for next week’s committee meeting. The end result was that the assistant city attorney Matt Roth and Mayor Maggard put up alot of poo-pooing and eshewing roadblocks to the legislation because, in reality, it would’ve meant a Dixon win, that which they couldn’t possibly allow. (To them, a ‘Dixon win’ connotes a ‘Maggard loss’) The sheep on council then placidly complied with their Shepard Mayor Maggard and the legislation died as Councilman Rodriguez carelessly and without full effort for the citizens he represents placed it in the coffin which he built out of his bias and inaction, pounding the nail into it with a “Does anybody have anything else” to finish things out. To this day, when there is a wayward large truck delivering to Target, it is myself, a private citizen of Chris Rodriguez’ Ward 1, who has to personally go and talk with the General Manager about the situation. Therefore it is I, Gerald Dixon, who has done right by the citizens of Ward 1, not their governmentally-elected representative on City Council, Chris Rodriguez. That is a shame on him and another reason he should resign.

In essence then, Councilman Rodriguez is a part of these familial proceedings that go on down at City Hall, that which I’ve been so outspoken against now for several years; the inter-donating, the beer-drinking socializing after meetings, the ignoring of wrongdoing and corruption and immorality in office that surrounds them. Mr. Rodriguez has taken $6,451.00 of taxpayer money in return for doing absolutely nothing and yet has not expressed any shame or remorse or mea culpas for having done so, particularly when any decency and morality he might possess should have motivated him to do the right thing when the wrong thing was happening in the first place. But no, he didn’t nor hasn’t. It is wrong and he hasn’t copped to that. As a public official and people’s representative, this is unacceptable. But, what I have witnessed consistently from this group is a strident arrogance with no shame or apology or admittance of any wrongdoing, particularly so when its truth is apparent even to a Dalmation. So, I suspect that this post and any future repudiations of their behavior will also be met with the same stubborn silence, refusal to acknowledge me and/or the charges I’ve leveled and fingers merely pointed back at the messenger to divert attention away from themselves. For their heel-digging, stonewalling, back-turning response in the face of truthful and factual charges knows no morality, decency or humility.

*I cannot or will not be the one to call Councilman Rodriguez out, have him/see him resign, only to then apply for and/or take the seat he leaves empty. It is wrong six ways to Sunday and I won’t preach conflicts of interest and public ethics and morality only then to ignore it myself. I may make the movements to call him out and demand he do the right thing but I will not then take advantage of my own actions to benefit myself. I’m calling him out because its the right thing for me to do, not because I’m trying to take his seat.