p-3cwPeRbeWWgGk
Cactus Thorns, commentary by Branson Hunter, Thursday March 11, 2010, TWENTYNINE PALMS- Mike Tree, through his administrative assistant and with his knowledge, early last week committed himself to answering some questions for Cactus Thorns. I drew up a list of straight-forward question, and at the City Manager’s request the questions were e-mailed to him.
That was last Friday. I’ve repeatedly called his office but there has been no response. No no word that he had changed his mind, would not answer the questions, and no call back from his office.
Is this any way for a $200,000 a year man to run the business of the city?
When a public official make a commitment to answer questions that are in the public’s interest, it’s inferred that it will be carried out in good faith and acted upon in a timely manner. Neither was done in this case by Mike Tree.
It begs the question, were the questions were too tough to tackle, too hot to handle? The good people of Twentynine Palms have a right to know the answers to these questions.
Here are the questions e-mailed to Mike Tree that apparently made him tremble?
1. What is the job description, duties and responsibilities of a Economic Development Specialist?
2. Who would he or she report to?
3. Have you or the the City Council anyone in mind for the position?
4. How is the City Council leaning toward funding and approving the position?
5. Will it be filled from within the city’s employee ranks?
6. Will the position be filled under the bidding process, or would you or the City Council seek
out a candidate with a good resume, with the best qualifications and experience?
7. Just how would the position be filled?
8. How will you recommendation it be filled?
9. If one of the Councilmen were to ask you — how do you justify creating a $120,000 Economic Development Specialist when a Desert Trail Poll is eighty-nine percent against it? — how would you answer the question?
10. Have you taken a consensus of any of the Councilmen, or discussed with any of them the Economic Development Specialist?
11. Under the Brown Act communicating with members of a legislative body one-by-one for a decision on a proposed action is prohibited. How do you walk the fine line when you meet privately or otherwise with councilmen on issues that may come before them for a vote?
12. Why is there a need to hire a Economic Development Specialist?
13 How is the proposed salary of $120,000 reached?
14. Are you enjoying being City Manager for Twentynine Palms?
15. Does the City Manager need an assistant?
16. What have you to say to qualifying veterans, the handicapped and senior in acute pain about the moratorium on medicinal marijuana in Twentynine Palms?
17. How do you feel about one medicinal marijuana dispensaries in 29 Palms for qualifying veterans, seniors and residents?
18. The City was expressly going to review and study Donnell gun range issue. But it has just sat there. Why has the City Council never revisited or studied the Donnell gun range issue?
19. Have you recommended that they review and study the Donnell gun range issue?
20. What is your best recommendation about the ORV Trails and Staging areas within city limits For examples, what may work and what scenarios are the least best options?
21. Why was it better to mollycoddle the Chamber of Commerce with a no-bid deal, and not give the outstandingly qualified California Desert Visitors Association (CDVA) a shot at the bid?
22. What about the Brown Act… How well are the requirement being implemented in terms of serial meetings, and meeting with elected officials before a consensus is reached?
23. When you meet with the members of the Town’s legislative body on a personal basis to discuss something coming up for a possible vote, how does the Brown Act come into play?
24. Is it important for the Economic Development Specialist to be hired quickly? Why the sudden rush?
25. The outdoor gun range within a residential area in the city limits is a controversial issue. It has overlapping and complicated coding issues as well as nuisance issues. What is the City Attorney’s legal position on the gun range within city limits?
26. What is the City Attorney’s advice on meetings with council members and the Brown Act?
“The ends do not justify the means.” If you use illegal mean to accomplish a legal and even desirable result, the good result does not make the bad means you used justifiable.
Related posts:
Hi Branson,
I’m a bit set back by your report.
Please allow me to call the City Manager and ask as to why he has not responded to your questions.
I will do that in the morning and get back to you.
Please do that. Thank you Steve.
It could be Steve that Mike is a self centered, arrogant, fill in the blank _______________
It could be that Mike is working on answering the questions. Some of them aren’t necessarily appropriate for the city manager, but more appropriate for the city council. My guess is that he’s working on it, along with a lot of other stuff that needs to be done, and the answers will come. I’ve always gotten good responses to questions at city hall, but sometimes it takes longer than I had expected.
Just a journalistic aside here, but some of the questions have rather subjective language in them, which is usually not a good way to get them answered, since use of subjective language is a direct signal that you have a pre-determined position on the question. If your real purpose when asking a question is to get real, valid answers, then it is good practice to drop the leading, subjective words. If you’re just fishing for a reaction that makes good controversial copy, but doesn’t actually inform your audience, then by all means, interject the fighting words.
One update on question 21 -- Mike Tree didn’t make the decision about any possible operation of the visitor center by the CDVA, the city council did. Mike had nothing to do with that decision, and I don’t think I would hold him accountable for explaining the decision-making processes of the council members. That would be their job.
The CDVA, by the way, is coming along very well. Our third year at the LA Times Travel & Adventure Show at the LA Convention Center, was quite successful. We gave out close to 20,000 brochures, maps, magazines, and other pieces of information, while promoting the California desert region to thousands of interested folks from our primary drive market. We were loaded up with material about Joshua Tree National Park, and our other desert parks (the CDVA’s secretary, Barbara Buckland, got busy months before the show contacting the parks for information, and even drove around the desert picking up the material to ensure that our national parks and state parks would be well represented).
The California Travel & Tourism Commission just sent out an e-mail membership drive for the CDVA to 2,600 organizations and businesses in the desert. We had a board meeting this week, and are planning to participate in a number of CTTC events and opportunities, for US and international marketing this year, and we will be hosting a regional cultural heritage tourism forum this fall.
Though we aren’t operating a formal visitor center right now like the one in 29 Palms, we do have visitor information for the California deserts at our office in Joshua Tree, and we’re enjoying meeting visitors from Canada, Germany, the US, and elsewhere.
I’ll make sure to keep the Cactus Thorns crowd updated as things progress, and yes, I do appreciate your support.
Steve, the questions were tongue in cheek. Yet, questions that were on the minds of many people. Cactus Thorns isn’t like you real journalist guys, we poke fun at politicians who we think screw up, and lampoon them on other issues. And then hope it opens their minds to other community views.
This irreverent barbs on local desert politics blog is not like The Sun Runner. Now that is a fine publication. And this is a good blog with irreverent barbs. That doesn’t mean we all can’t learn and get alone.
Hey Branson,
Thanks for your compliments on the magazine. We work hard to produce a professional publication that the community can be proud of. And though I’ve taken some heat for saying so, I think this blog provides a needed and useful forum for our community. That’s why folks like the City of Twentynine Palms have this blog on their press list and all press releases that go to the mainstream media here, also are sent to this blog.
But help me out. You’ve got two different topics going on here -- irreverent, relevant commentary, and asking for questions to be answered. If your questions were tongue in cheek, then please tell me why you would be outraged when a public servant found better things to do with his time, like do his freakin’ job, than answer them? If you seriously want important questions to be answered, then ask serious questions, pick a few that you would really like to have answered, and then ask for them to be answered within a timely period.
If you’re just grandstanding by asking an enormous number of disjointed, open-ended questions of a busy public official and then you’re going to get upset when you don’t get him to take hours to try to answer them, knowing that his answers will become public record and can be used for good -- or not so good -- purposes, then I’m not sure as to your real purpose, and Michael Tree probably isn’t, either.
In your commentary above, you note that you drew up a list of straightforward questions that you believed, seriously, it would appear, the community needed to have answered. Then you use an indignant tone in noting that he hasn’t, as of yet, answered them. Now you say the questions were tongue in cheek, and weren’t seriously meant to be answered? Which is it?
I’m just trying to figure out which of these two approaches are the one you really intended.
Yes, both citizen-run blogs and professional media are important. But it helps to try one approach or the other at a time!
Steve, I’m not outraged when a public servant found better things to do with his time. I expected the city manager would decline to answer the questions. Questions that people are asking. The Desert Trail Poll shows people are nearly 90% against the city manager’s foray to bring a high-priced professional into the loop, running city business. Mike is not a popular man right now.
You are applying your principles, which are varied, into the mix. I think Gonzo-like local bloggers aren’t held to the same principals or standards as are professional journalists. I think many bloggers grew up with the likes of Michael Moore, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and investigative news programs. Many of them do not hold to the same standards as other professional journalists.
I’m all for open government and making a public records of the hard questions. The questions submitted to Mr. Tree are the very sort of questions being asked out in the streets. My main purpose is open bidding and equal job opportunities; the Brown Act is respected and followed; cronyism be out of fashion; interesting stories, and lampooning public figures in a way to structure a story to create discussion on local issues.
I’m like Dan (not politically thank goodness for that) in that I may insult public persons but believe that’s the price of living in a democracy where speech, commentary and opinions are allowed. Fact is, they are necessary. It’s the price to pay when public figures thrust themselves into highly controversy positions where reason seems to have gone out the window.
Lampooning and muckraking is not what the Sun Runner is about. But I think the -thorn- in Cactus Thorns is what makes this a popular blog.
I hope to stop in at The Sun Runner one of these days as I pass through Joshua Tree. Maybe we can talk more on the matter. I won’t tell you how to run your magazine but maybe we can exchange views and better understand why we do things the way we do them.
Steve you have way too much time on your hands.
I’m assuming that comment about “too much time on your hands” was meant for Mr. Spear! I’ve got a magazine to put together, a business to run, a shop to stock, a regional visitors association to run, events to plan, and a UK tour to book for my pirate band. I just type fast.
Hmmm… Steve I think that Stanley may have been talking about you as Steve and not me as Steve.
We may have too may Steve people here -- what do you think Steve?
Now I have way too much time on my hands. In fact I’m planning on selling some of my extra time on Craigslist.
Don’t bother selling on Craigslist. They evidently allow it to be used for fencing stolen goods (I’ve tried to get a response from their PR folks on that question for well over a month now, in relation to a local case), and all I ever get are people bugging me, or wanting to trade their old El Camino for five acres of land.
Steve, you’re right about there being too many Steves here. It is far too confusing for me. So, from hence on out, you shall be referred to by all posters as “The right honorable member of the Privy Council of the City of Twentynine Palms, Mssr. Steve Spear,” and I shall be referred to as “Lord Admiral of the Ocean Seas, regent of the domains of the western mesas, and delusional magazine publisher, the righteous Sun Runner Steve Shanghai Brown.”
Dan, of course, will continue to be known as “whackjob.”
I kinda like the ring of that…. Danny “The Whackjob” O’Brien. I always wanted a “Godfather” nickname… It will really go good with my new fedora.
I’m getting a hold of A to Z Specialty Products today to get my cards printed.
Quite a few people this week have been telling me you deserve a “Godfather” kind of nickname. Glad to hear you’re trying to bring hats back into fashion, and you are supporting local businesses for your printing needs!
Let me see… How about Stevie “Six Toes” Brown or lets change your name altogether and go with Hiram “Lefty” Leftcowitz. I just love the sound of “lefty,.”
You would. But it’s taken me nearly 50 years to figure out how to spell Steve Brown, so I’m not all that anxious to change.
I am quite confused. Since when did the City Manager make the decision to bring in and Economic Development Specialist. I was at the last City Council Meeting and vividly remember the City Council voting 3-2 to bring one in and to address the position description at a later meeting once it has been rewritten. I also remember that the position would not be advertised until such time as the position description was rewritten and approved by the City Council.
I do not know where you get your information about how this City’s government works, but the last I checked nothing happens with the creation of new positions or their funding with the direct majority approval of the City Council. To read this website and some of the postings, it is obvious to myself and many many others that there is a personal vendetta against the current City Manager.
Now I do not know him personaly but from my incounters, he seems to be an honest man with nothing but the best interests of the City and it’s future at heart.
I read another article on this site chastising the City because there is a new Italian restaurant opening in the future on the base and yet here you are demeaning those very persons that want someone on staff to help recruit and bring business here to 29Palms so that our tax dollars do not continually get spent in Yucca Valley or down the hill.
Now do you see why I am so confused????