The Battle Has Just Begun

By Ron West – May 2004

The election is over and we are beginning a new and refreshing era of more open government in the City of North Richland Hills.  Two new Councilpersons have been elected that will open the door of city government to the rest of us.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that there are still five members of the old regime in place and so far they haven’t given us any indication that they have a co-operative or responsive spirit.

Our little mayor has already fired the first shots at the newcomers by saying that they bring only strife and dissention to the council.  He says all of the progress of the past 10 years will be stopped or lost.   This is not an exact quote but echoes the essence of his words and those of JoAnn Johnson as reported by the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Without our continued and active support for Jo Cox and Nancy Bielik, they will be outnumbered and maybe overwhelmed.  Now more than ever, we need to show up at Council and Zoning Meetings.  Now more than ever, we need to “Ask a Bunch of Questions”.   Now we need to demand that they acknowledge that we own the city and they work for us.

Now organization is more important.  If we allow apathy to set in and do not build up the NRH Citizens Organization, they will take back our gains.   If we do not voice our concerns and take an active support roll for the new members of the council, they will be run over by the incumbents.  Now is the time for us to recruit our neighbors and friends for the next battle.  Whether that is a recall election for sitting council members or the election for the four council seat that comes up in May 2005, we need to start working on it now.

We need to recruit business supporters because this council has not been friendly to business.  We need to set up funding for future campaign support.

We need your input and submissions to this site, the newspaper and Local News Only – to tell the incumbents your views and your side of the issues.  We need you to write letters to the editor.

We need to build a big list of voters with e-mail addresses!  You can help with this by talking to your friends who are voters in NRH and getting permission to add them to our email list.  Simply send the email address to me at ronwestorg@yahoo.com or go to the www.nrhcitizens.org site and log in.  This list will be used to alert voters to the actions of the council before those actions become ordinances.  The more names and email addresses we have, the more power we will have to take back our government.

We need volunteers to help with building a powerful citizens organization so that we speak with a voice that must be heard.  This can be as little as an hour a month – or whatever you can spare – to help.

We still face the issues of controlling spending, lowering taxes, strengthening ethics, open government, informative agendas, overt grabbing of property rights, a noxious sign ordinance that penalizes business, and a lawsuit against the city that could possibly cost over $25 Million if not settled soon.

This site will continue to operate as a source of information about the activities of our local city government.  Visit here often and visit the links provided to take an active part in our fight to take our city back for the citizens.