Have you ever attended a Colleyville City Council meeting where a controversial subject is being discussed? In case you haven’t, that’s just about every meeting. Here are a few selected comments from Colleyville residents taken from meetings I have attended in the past couple of years:

In response to a plan to require a right-of-way dedication for the future expansion of John McCain road in Fall 1999, after an impassioned speech, a resident speaker waives his finger at the City Council from the podium and states, "if you go forward on this plan all I want for Christmas is your two front teeth."

May 2000, at a meeting where several departing councilmembers are making final statements prior to the newly elected members taking their seats, Councilman Carroll comments on his disappointment at the failure of the developer to resolve problems at Caldwell’s Creek, the developer erupts from the audience and challenges Mr. Carroll to step outside.

In a meeting where a rezoning is being considered for a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Food store, several citizens speak to Council stating, in essence, "we don’t want those kind of people in Colleyville."

More recently, just after a hastily prepared ethics resolution is being criticized as politically motivated and in conflict with the city charter by former city officials, a citizen speaker gets up, turns to address the audience where the former mayors and councilmen who just spoke are seated, and calls them "cockroaches." Former city councilman Steve Helling quips after the meeting that he is going home, to the "roach motel."

The motivation for this column occurred a couple of weeks ago after reading a letter to the editor of LNO from a fellow parent of a sixth grader at Colleyville Middle School, whose daughter happens to be a friend of my daughter. He tactfully writes: "You guys are the biggest sore losers I've ever seen.  Your devious and underhanded tactics and innuendos typify the scumbags you are."

I don’t know about the rest of you, but these examples, and others like them, surely detract from the resolution of our community’s problems in a well-reasoned and sensible manner. Not to mention the unfortunate image we create for ourselves among neighbors. Aren’t we already seen by surrounding communities as a snooty, spoiled bunch that have spent years trying to figure out a "vision" for Colleyville or whether or not to build a library, city hall or widen roads and, even after the roads are complete, whether or not to cover them back up with dirt! Yes, that’s us, the fine citizens that make up the community of Colleywood. Our town remains the butt of jokes throughout the metroplex despite the contrary ramblings of our chamber of commerce.

The truth is we desperately need to do a better job of resolving our civic problems through mutual discussion and principled debate without all the rancor and wind vane politics. Regardless of political belief or affiliation, conducting principled public discussion and debate based primarily on the issues is sorely lacking in our town. I speak from some experience having spent about 15 years in local government as a city planner and city manager in Florida. I have seen what motivated communities can do to raise the level of discussion and debate to achieve positive results despite badly divided positions on issues. Sensible and well thought out arguments lead to sensible solutions not new roads covered with dirt. The bottom line is that no position is completely right or wrong, but if the best we can do as citizens is call each other "cockroaches" and "scumbags" or threaten to knock each other’s teeth out, we will surely fail miserably at finding even adequate solutions to our community’s problems.

Lets chart a new course toward improving deliberations by encouraging the full debate of issues without all the debilitating factionalism. It seems here in Colleyville that every issue that comes up is quickly turned into some form of an "us versus them" theme by our politicians. Why is that? For starters, I have noticed at city council meetings that Mayor Arp likes to line up the public hearing speakers on a particular issue in a "for" or "against" order depending on her preference. The dissenters from the Mayor’s view are called up first, one by one, and her supporters are called to speak nearer to the end of a discussion; presumably to finish the public comment on a note of support for her position, or as in the example mentioned, to call previous speakers "cockroaches." How about random or alphabetical order Mayor or let the City Secretary do the calling of speakers? Why not hear both sides of an issue throughout a discussion without further encouraging the factional divide? What about the right to express your opinions without being ridiculed? Why wasn’t the "cockroach" speaker gaveled out-of-order?

Raising the level of debate on issues in our town will require those involved in the process to tone done the personal attacks and individual vendettas in a favor of the very deliberate and complete focus on the issues at hand. This focus needs to start with our city leaders and filter its way into our advisory boards and committees. We haven’t been doing a very good job at keeping the political overtones under control. Just look at some recent signs of the depth of our problems. First, over the past year or so there has been a mass exodus of our senior city staff, which I speculate may have grown weary of the excessive politics surrounding so many of their decisions. In addition, the practically complete replacement of long-standing city advisory board members by the city council in favor of new more politically acceptable members stands as a clear example of rampant factionalism. Another very recent example includes the elimination of the current city library advisory committee in favor of a "permanent" city library advisory board, which appears to be nothing more than a pretext by the Mayor to replace an independent and free thinking committee with her political supporters.

It’s easy to throw blame at the current Mayor and city council. So far it appears to me that they are continuing to perpetuate the problem, but in their defense the factionalism apparently has a long and deep-rooted history in Colleyville politics. My purpose here is not to heave stones at a glass house, but merely to issue a challenge to Mayor Arp and the city council, comprised of members who enjoyed the full support of each other during their respective elections, to show some real backbone and address the significant issues our community faces without the degenerative factional politics. Deal with the issues in a straightforward manner and avoid the ugly favoritism that you have shown in the recent past to your followers, thus allowing you all to rise above the real "scumbags" and "cockroaches" of our community.

Steven Magee

Member of the Colleyville Parks and Recreation Advisory Board

Chairman of the Colleyville Library Advisory Committee

Former Member of the Colleyville Board of Adjustment

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