Danny Chambers chose today to vent angrily at me. I had gone down to his office to ask him about a controversy between what Joe Boles told me and what he appeared to be saying Chambers said regarding the Christmas Town event the City is putting on. I had originally thought to send an email but I kind of like looking people in the eye and asking in person, with the desired outcome for Chambers to write me what the resolution would be. He came out of his office to speak with me by Kelly the admin’s desk, which was fine. (Richard Talavera and Kelly were within earshot, and I expect since he was loud and angry that others heard him too outside the office) I am not quoting him word for word but he believes he has gone out of his way to help out with various records for some years, has put up with being lampooned, and thinks that I am unfairly quoting him in an attempt to mislead people. He was quite angry about posts from this site appearing on Facebook; I told him, as I say all the time, that I am not on Facebook and have no Facebook account, my original postings are here on this site, Somervell County Salon. In fact, on any videos or audio I make, I put “Somervell County Salon” or “scsalon.org” on them so people can go to the source. Now, my husband sometimes re-posts some of my content and it leads to some people believing he is the one that said stuff, but he is not. Danny knows this as he said he knows that *I do not have control over my husband*. Hah, well, SHOULD I? Can’t anyone post what they want, including reposts from other sites without having to get approval from their significant other or spouse? If the opposite were true (and the former County Attorney asked hub this once, would it be expected that hub would have control over me and admonish me, an adult? I got the drift that he had been contacted by a lot of people on Facebook and was more than unhappy about it. I assume, lately that this was because I got the bodycam of the Pow Wow event, uploaded it with a bit of the video not included as necessary and then did a post about it. In a meeting shortly after that, he was chewed out by at least two of the participants of the Pow Wow who commented and I’m sure he can’t have liked it. I figure people can watch the video or listen to the audio and form an opinion for themselves but that does not make what I show via video/audio/or open records a lie or intended to mislead. For example, did ANYONE like seeing Cyndi Gray giving Chambers the double middle fingers and then Danny saying “You see what I have to put up with?” , as if he, the County Judge, MUST put up with recalcitrant employees in a right-to-work state, instead of telling her to knock it off?
The upshot of this was that he said he would be answering me in writing, which is what I wanted anyway and I completely agree with him doing. Anyone that reads my site knows that I put a premium on having records, video, audio to show something or prove a point, quite often along with my opinion. (Side note that I do not expect that every reader agrees with me on every issue, but as an American in a diverse country, I get to have freedom of speech)
Maybe Chambers didn’t like a lot of the postings I did about a completely unconstitutional and frivolous lawsuit Darrell Best and Andy Lucas brought against my hub in 2019-ish. I found him hypocritical He tried to drag his feet paying the court judgement after Somervell County was ruled against in that case. And this post and video that showed a number of people in the courtroom, including Ron Hankins, (who had secretly been behind the lawsuit, with Best, as well, and finally ‘fesed up when under deposition) before Lucas decided to further appeal the case to the Supreme Court (where he ultimately lost and then Somervell County and Best were on the hook for money) to be weird. Honestly, he was dragging his feet so much, in my opinion, NOT speaking for hub, I think he just hoped the whole problem would go away and the county would not have to pay out. But they did because they were wrong and they allowed a frivolous lawsuit against a Somervell County resident to go on for approximately 6 years. Details, including court transcripts, etc are on this site, here if you are interested in seeing an Anti-Slapp case won
Chambers is well aware of my distaste for his actively putting prayer on the agenda, as if county meeting is a church. It was never there before him, through Walter Maynard or Mike Ford’s judgeship and frankly, I find that bigoted and divisive. From 2016- Record of Unconstitutional Prayer (Judge Danny Chambers) The only saving grace with this is that the prayers are NOT directed to the When he did this, until called on it, he would audience but only for the commissioners, but I think the fact that they do not open up for anyone to do a prayer, only a commissioner from the dais, is unconstitutional. From 2017
At some point, someone decided to take the neutral Somervell County Court sign down from the commissioners courtroom and replace it with In God We Trust, again trying to establish religion in what I think should be a neutral secular court setting. I did a post back in 2019 showing Chambers wearing a Saudi-style headdress. I guess from what he said today that must have been rankling him for the past 5 years and yet he sees no issue in trying to divide the Commissioners Court on the basis of religion, when he simply does not have to. And I’m sure he has heard of political cartoons before, maybe he thought he was immune from that.
I wondered why Trey Brown had signs that were clearly not lawful put up in Somervell County Annex and who did it. Did Chambers really not have any idea why the County Attorney did this? I asked him about this, and who came up with it, and he said he didn’t know and to ask Trey. Why not? Having these types of signs reflects on him, not merely as judge on Commissioners Court but judge in the local court who decides about breaking the law.
Talking about how I felt misled about answers to an open records request. This had to do with an anticipated lawsuit by Cyndi Gray and included some complaints against one elected official and one county employee. The return of information seemed misleading to me, and I expressed that to Chambers. He immediately apparently flew off the handle and said he didn’t appreciate being called a liar. I did not call Chambers a liar, and he equally, instead of ccing everybody and their dog, could have reached out to discuss *my* feelings that I did not believe that the record about the complaints was fairly answered. He did not. That clearly made him angry and I told him I did not call him a liar, that I was sorry he felt that way, and reiterated that I felt misled. I can’t be bullied out of how I feel about this, seems to me that this would have been something that Chambers would know about and possibly have the documents in one of the piles of stuff in his office. I certainly would like to have a reasonable relationship with Chambers but it’s not me barking at him.
If Chambers, or anyone else, believes that being in public office implies that no criticism or cartoons or expectation that records be made available for citizens (or trying to slow walk compliance) (if applicable and legal under the Texas Public Information Act) or wishing that commissioners would put back a comment section on the agendas, as every other Somervell County govt entity has and Chambers took off, or wanting the agenda to reflect what actually is discussed in Executive Session and not add-ons or more fully discussing agenda items and not leaving attendees scratching heads wondering about the details, he is mistaken and probably needs to be in some private job.
At the same time, honestly, i have had questions for months about what I heard was missing and misapplied money not accounted for (at the time there were apparently photos), about why in the world a felony-indicted for theft person was not only kept in the payroll, of all departments, but then transferred to be the director of the Expo until she was recently, finally, let go. I’m not the only person that has had questions and most of them are unproven gossip but how do we know if it’s not true if it appears the problem is being swept under the rug? As citizens, taxpaying citizens, we have the right to know what is going on with our money. Not that an elected official has to bow down and do what we say as an action, but I never heard a really good explanation about why Gray got the job and why, despite what I think was at least one or two executive sessions, the commissioners didn’t dump her early on.
Overall, at least to me, the point is not whether any particular public office person is friends with me, but I do like to think that anyone that has had interactions with me knows I go out of my way to be polite and not, for example, loudly attack people in public as Chambers did today. However, he is welcome, of course, to fly off the handle; I do not believe that the responsiveness of government to citizens should be based on whether a citizens is pals with the good ole boys rather than treating people equally while following the law. And that includes being able to criticize our elected officials . I’m not going to stop being outspoken just because somebody chooses to yell at me. I hold as a standard that government exists for the people and not the other way around, I have a perfect right to look into my government and try to account for how money is being spent, and anything else, and wonder when a Cyndi Gray felony situation comes up and is apparently ignored.
Ending this with my favorite quote from the Texas Public Information Handbook
Sec. 552.001. POLICY; CONSTRUCTION. (a) Under the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government that adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy.(b) This chapter shall be liberally construed in favor of granting a request for information.
