Part 3 of 3.
Source: Hamilton: An American Musical.
"No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens."
Source: Hamilton.
In the first two parts of this (too long) blog post (Part 1, Part 2), I congratulated Mayor Amir Omar on trying to add transparency to the council's decisions. And I applauded Jennifer Justice and Joe Corcoran for joining him in voting against moving the decision-making process into secret. And I didn't applaud Hutchenrider, Barrios, Dorian, and Arefin who all voted to continue excluding the public from witnessing the council conduct this important business.
Today, I'll examine the result of the council's closed-door session, their pick for Mayor Pro Tem for 2025-2027. I could have led with that two days ago, but I seriously think the process used (closed instead of open) was the more important story. Mayor Pro Tems come and go. The principle of transparency is forever. My mission is to rescue "transparency" from the lip service that politicians pay it, and give gravity back to the word, so people take it seriously again.
The Lede
For those who only look for headlines, here's your lede: The Richardson City Council elected Kenneth Hutchenrider as Mayor Pro Tem for the 2025-2027 term.
How they got there is a murky story. In telling it, I'll air my criticisms, my suspicions, my conspiracy theories, if you will, because anytime government does things behind closed doors, they conversely open the door to all of the rest. I can't simply discuss the public record because there is none, at least for the executive session. And I refuse to just say nothing. "Democracy dies in darkness," was how the Washington Post used to say it before darkness descended on it. I don't want it to die in Richardson, Texas, so, paradoxically, I speculate where I must.
But, just as I can't point to a public record to support what I say, no one can point to a record to prove me wrong, either. That's how secret meetings work. They open government up to all sorts of wild claims and you can't even deny them, not with a gag order in place forbidding revealing what happens in executive sessions, which the Richardson City Council unwisely imposed on itself in 2010.
The council members have the freedom to complain about what I say, of course. I'm always available to discuss it over coffee, if anyone wants to tell me something to my face. All I ask is that we meet somewhere in public. ;-)
The Screenplay for the Movie
Flashback to the opening remarks of the night, way back from Part 1 of this overlong blog post. We hear the first words of Ken Hutchenrider, then with just the simple title "Council Member", spoken with feigned astonishment: "Thank you, Mayor. Having served now, I'm on now my seventh year. It's hard to believe I'm the longest serving on council." That's his "It's my time, dammit" argument. Remember it. It's also a foreshadowing of a theme.
Back to the present: the council's public vote is unanimous, 7-0 for Ken Hutchenrider for Mayor Pro Tem. The private vote, behind closed doors, is something else.
Regardless whether or not the council took any kind of vote in closed session or not, or how many such votes they took before they reached a decision, I'm going to say the vote in private was 4-3. Or 4-2. Because once Ken Hutchenrider secured the support of four council members, he had enough to be elected Mayor Pro Tem. Reading between the lines of what the council members said in open session before the official vote, this is how I believe the votes shook out in secret.
The order of appearance of council members here is based on the order they spoke in open session. I have no way of knowing the order they spoke in executive session, because, again, there's no public record for history to know how the game was played...in the room where it happens.
Jennifer Justice: "I 110% support Ken for this position." Despite saying that, she did not vote for him in private. She also said, "I support him a hundred percent for the position, but wanted to state my disappointment in that decision given our great commitment to diversity over the last few years."
She wanted the position herself and I compliment her for transparency in admitting to disappointment with the outcome.
Arefin Shamsul: "I served last two years. This year, someone else is running. Two years from now, somebody else, hopefully will run."
Arefin asked that his own name be considered, although he has always presented a sense of modesty, claiming to be equally content winning or losing election. How true that ever was is irrelevant here. In either case, he didn't have the support to win a second term as Mayor Pro Tem, so he played kingmaker.
Arefin: "We looked at who has the most experience." That's Hutchenrider's "It's my time, dammit" argument at work. "Another thing that I considered was an ability to run a business, someone who has a little more than the others." Remember this argument, too. I'll come back to it. Here, just know that Arefin supported Hutchenrider.
Dan Barrios: "It is no secret that I was one of the ones that was willing to throw my name into the hat...With that said, I support Councilman Hutchenrider for Mayor Pro Tem." When Barrios realized he didn't have the support to get the election himself, he swung his support to Hutchenrider. Why Hutchenrider?
Barrios: "There's no secret that Councilman Hutchenrider and I oftentimes end up on different sides for various reasons, and we've had our differences on and off camera." It's ironic that Barrios is telling us how Hutchenrider behaves off camera right after both of them just voted to send the cameras out of the room, and wants us to take him on trust.
Barrios: "While we may have our disagreements, oftentimes we come back, whether it's the next day or a week later, we discuss it and we share our differences. I have no doubt that he has the passion and intelligence and the ability to speak. I will say that any feedback I believe I've provided to him previously and today in closed session, I think he will take to heart, and I look forward to supporting him as Mayor Pro Tem."
I'm getting vibes that, in this relationship, maybe subconsciously, Barrios is submissive to Hutchenrider's alpha dog. So, when he found himself with no support, he sided with Hutchenrider instead of Justice.
Joe Corcoran: "I have two of my OG friends, longest serving on the council with me [Justice and Arefin], who were both really, really qualified for the role...I leaned slightly toward council member Justice."
Corcoran didn't want the job himself, and supported Justice from the start to the end, only swinging to Hutchenrider after he had the four votes he needed to get the job. Corcoran then expressed solidarity in public by making the motion to elect Hutchenrider in the official, public vote.
Curtis Dorian: "Really honestly, we have become friends, and, you know, and I consider Jennifer as a friend...If we could choose two Mayor Pro Tems or Co-Mayor Pro Tems, we would have done that, believe me."
Whether Dorian asked that his own name be considered is unknown, but if so, he dropped out early, having no support. It eventually came down to two: Justice or Hutchenrider.
Dorian: "But I ultimately, you know, did support Ken. I did that for a couple different reasons. One, I'm looking at seniority and how those dominoes will fall over a period of time, at least for the next two years. I know Ken, you know, has, like I said, over 40 years of experience, he's been on the council for six years. He does have a leadership role in the community."
That's Ken's "It's my time, dammit" argument working again. But it's the other argument that I'll want to come back to later. That's that Hutchenrider makes a good choice for Mayor Pro Tem because of his "leadership role in the community."
If you're tracking the support at home, Hutchenrider has four votes (his own, Arefin's, Barrios's, and Dorian's). Justice has two (her own and Corcoran's).
Mayor Amir Omar: "I'm also happy to be supporting Council Member Hutchenrider with the vote."
Notice that the mayor didn't explain his vote. That is a sign that it was a mere formality to express solidarity with the rest of the team. Once Hutchenrider secured four votes, the others rallied around the majority to make it unanimous, no matter who their preferred candidate might have been. The mayor has a plausible claim to have stayed neutral in this fight, at least based on any public record anyone can point to.
Ken Hutchenrider himself did not speak before the formal vote on the motion to elect him as Mayor Pro Tem, because of course, the outcome was just a formality. He didn't speak afterwards...for no reason at all that I heard. So the council picked a Mayor Pro Tem without the public ever hearing from the man at all. That's a strange way of doing business, but it's in line with the whole executive session way this was carried out. It's also a strange way to end a movie.
And curtain.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Where Do I Stand?
Did the seven heads working together come up with a better selection than my one head working alone would have? If the selection were done in a ranked-choice vote, on my ballot Ken Hutchenrider would have been #7. I explained why in The Wheel's 2023 Voters Guide, the last election in which Hutchenrider faced an opponent. That opponent was Todd Hunter. I said:
The alternative to Hunter is Ken Hutchenrider. On his campaign website, Hunter says, "I have no professional or personal conflicts that will interfere with me serving the city to the utmost of my ability." I infer that is Hunter throwing shade at Hutchenrider. It's a bit harsh. Hutchenrider is a good man and an asset to Richardson. He's squeaky clean. Still, he is the President of Methodist Richardson Medical Center, one of the largest businesses in Richardson. The City Council should provide oversight of business in the City of Richardson. I prefer a City Council that's independent of big businesses, not one that includes the top executives of those businesses. That alone, and not any weighing of pluses and minuses of his four years of service on City Council, prevents me from endorsing Hutchenrider for another two years.Source: The Wheel.
The conflict of interest isn't just my imagination. Hutchenrider is required to file a Conflict of Interest Affidavit with the City of Richardson because of his employment as President of the Methodist Richardson Medical Center, in which he states, on oath, that he will "abstain from voting on any decision involving this business entity, or real property and from any further participation on this matter whatsoever." (emphasis added). So, yeah, I don't want someone with a glaring conflict of interest serving on Council. I certainly don't want him serving as Mayor Pro Tem, a heartbeat away from the Mayor's seat, so to speak.
Where Do We Go From Here?
I, for one, will be looking to support candidates for City Council in 2027 who don't just pay lip service to transparency, but take it to heart. I'll be tracking council votes. This first 4-3 vote to elect the Mayor Pro Tem in executive session will be the first council vote I track. Four council members already have one strike against them: Arefin, Dorian, Barrios, and Hutchenrider.
In an online comment to Part 2 of this post, Deb Be said, "My CEO is insanely transparent and it's almost the number one reason people cite when they are asked why they work here. Being transparent sounds like a great political talking point - but in reality it's hard... It invites accountability like nothing else. It takes real leadership to be willing to take on all of those things and I'm very disappointed to see a decided lack of leadership from so many council members."
I'll be looking for candidates who are "insanely transparent."
End of Part 3 of 3.
"Behind the closed doors,
transparency disappears.
We will not forget."
—h/t ChatGPT
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