Letter sent very recently to all the Somervell County commissioners, from an Open Records Request

Wonder how often Judge Mike Ford feels the need to scold adult commissioners who don't do his bidding and follow along with his bad ideas?

My personal opinion is that the commissioners represent, first, the people in their precinct, and do not have an obligation to vote AS A COURT just to pacify Mr Ford. It is only Mr Ford's job to break a tie if 2 commissioners do not agree with 2 other commissioners in a vote. This smacks of trying to shift the blame for what he did, and yes, secretively, to being the commissioners fault and I certainly hope they all did a big ole side-eye when they got this. I particularly like 2 of the commissioners who I believe are honest and try to do a good job, I'm not so happy with my own who voted to create that board, told me he didn't really know what the purpose of it was, and that he'd get back to tell me. He never did. My opinion continues to be that NO commissioner should vote on anything this big until/unless the people in their precinct KNOW about it, and have had a chance to weigh in AND that the commissioners completely understand what they are voting for.

And that they need to not wait on Ford's blessing to STOP going through with creating that board.

P.S. Been wondering about something in this. The March 10, 2014 Somervell County Commissioners Court has an agenda item, after hearing the SR2O presentation, to

Consider and take appropriate action regarding the formation of a public facility corporation, including consideration of acceptance and approval of proposed Articles of Incorporation, By laws, and Resolution making specific findings regarding the creation of the Public Facility Corporation, and authorizing the County Clerk to execute such Resolution.

Mr Ford says in this letter "You each indicated to me and to Mike Clemons that you wanted to move to the "due dligence" phase. You voted to do so at the public meeting"

The first time that I can find that this *due diligence* stuff was talked about publicly, including a PFC, was AT the March 10 meeting. Was this agreement to do this for Ford and Mike Clemons part of an informal conversation held outside of commissioners court? If so, why wasn't this discussed in a posted commissioners court meeting? Could it really be that the Judge and Clemons and the commissioners made a deal OUTSIDE OF THE COURT to pass this without discussion and that they already supposedly knew what it was? (Except for John Curtis who told me he didn't know why they needed a PFC and what it was for) We heard that maybe the passing of that board might also include paying somebody to do research. Seems like that should have been a vigorous discussion IN FRONT OF the public but instead it sounds like Ford was trying to stack the deck BEFORE the meeting. I cannot find, in any agenda before this, any reference to the PFC. And yet, at that meeting where they voted on the PFC, someone had already created an error-ridden legal document for the PFC, at someone's behest. We remind that the commissioners were GOING to put this on the agenda to shut this PFC down but Mike Ford told them they should wait until after the PFC has been created !!!! ????? !!!!!! and they are. I frankly don't understand why. If, as John Curtis told me, he didn't really know what the purpose of the board was but he voted for it anyway, then why the fool can't they vote to STOP any efforts to legally create the board? It makes zero sense to say to wait until after even MORE effort has been put into creating this, unless Ford hopes the commissioners won't actuall vote it down AFTER creation.

if you think that the commissioners ought to be able to just vote to STOP this since the only reason to do this was for the benefit specifically of SR20, then CALL YOUR COMMISSIONER and tell him to get this on the agenda and vote to REVERSE what they voted for.