We really ought to make all our elected officials take driver’s ed again.  Remember Mayor ”Hit and Run” (former Bartlett Mayor Bobby) Hill?  Well, now we have Judge ”Drive By” Doerfler.

Per the Hill Country News, while toodling down Highway 29 in his Chevy truck last week, County Judge John Doerfler made a U-turn onto the shoulder of the highway.  When he reentered the road, a Ford Escort had to hit the brakes, then hit another vehicle - a Mack truck.  Doerfler continued cruisin’ on down the road until pulled over by a Pct 4 Constable, who saw the whole thing, then escorted him back to the scene of the accident he had caused.  Luckily, no one was injured.

No word if cell phones were involved in the accident.

Things are heating up out in the Precinct Two Commissioner’s mud wrestling contest.  According to the Hill Country News, the Leander City Council approved the petition for voluntary annexation of candidate Terry Davis’ residence in the Ridgmar Landing subdivision.  This isn’t the last of it folks - there will be two more public hearings on the matter before the final vote.  Plenty of time to check out the action.

The request has irritated Davis’ neighbors no end as (GASP), they think they might be involuntarily annexed as a result.  The City Manager, Biff Johnson, told the nervous neighbors that, while the city has no intention of annexing the subdivision for years to come, future annexation is inevitable.  Well, D’uh.

The News also rehashed the 2003 brouhaha between the Davises and Leander residents David Pope and Agnes Stanley.  Back then, Pope and Stanley filed a criminal complaint alleging the Davises weren’t residents of Leander and couldn’t use the law office address to register to vote.  The Davises were later No Billed by the Grand Jury (note to all Leanderthals - Terry Davis is a lawyer).  Iris Davis is currently on the Leander City Council.  The beef about the voting No Bill comes back around pretty near every election cycle.  Wah, wah, wah.  Get over it.  Go find something else in your neighborhood to whine about, like, say, toll roads.

It appears some of the info on Valerie Covey’s (District Clerk candidate) resume is deliberately misleading.  According to the resume posted on her website, Covey was an Audit Manager for a giant accounting firm.  However, the giant accounting firm representative has said most likely not - she didn’t have the five years professional accounting experience required to be an Audit Manager - since she had just graduated from college.

According to our tipster, Covey never did work for the State Comptroller as she claims (see below link).  The vendor she really did work for - for only 8 1/2 months - instead of the Comptroller - did such unsatisfactory work, it lost the contract.  Sorry Val, 8 1/2 months is not two years, no matter what sort of accounting formula you use.

We have a copy of an evaluation that shows the vendor, during Covey’s tenure, was supposed to complete 11 audits.  All the audits were turned in late, all were returned for correction, and only two were ever completed.  Even by government standards, that’s really bad.

Click here to see the documents  comptroller letter and evaluation of services.pdf

An earlier posting (I Can Bring Home the Bacon), indicated Covey held down three jobs between 2002 and 2003.  It was pointed out to us that she was holding down not three, but *four* jobs during that time (our bad).  In addition to the three jobs first posted, she also ran her own CPA firm from 2003 to 2005.  What a worker!  But if part of her resume is fake or inflated, it still doesn’t add up any way you do the math.

Can you name the County Surveyor?  Heck, we couldn’t either.  In fact, we figured County Surveyors had gone the way of carrier pigeons and County Hide Inspectors….

In ballot order, the two candidates for this office are Joe Baker and Shane S. Shafer. Neither candidate has a website.  Grrrr.  The incumbent hasn’t bothered to create a departmental website linked to the main county website, either.  In fact, you have to go to the County Clerk’s FAQs to even find the name of the guy and a phone number.  Grrrr.  Grrr.

Once you start googling, you can find a nice head shot and resume at his company website (he’s President & CEO), which has offices in Round Rock, Cedar Park and San Marcos.   He’s got lots of letters of the alphabet strung out after his name, that sort of spell purple, if you’re not picky how you spell it. 

This is an office authorized by the Texas Constitution - which also gives Commissioner’s Court the authority to call an election to abolish it (Article 16, Section 44).  With all the development going on in the county, ya think this should be a full time job?

UPDATE: This is one strange race.  You’ve got two people spending money to run for an office that doesn’t pay anything and doesn’t provide county health or retirement benefits.  Zip. Zero. Nada.  When the county actually needs some surveying work done, it is contracted out to the private sector.

We’ve avoided the local state rep races for a while, with good reason.  What’s been going on south of here is just plain embarrassing - no matter what political stripe you are wearing.  In ballot order, the candidates for State Representative HD 52 are Barbara Samuelson and Mike Krusee.  In HD 20, Dan M. Gattis is unopposed in the primary.

If you’re not familar with the total breakdown of legislative leadership at the Texas Capitol, shame on you.  Only if you were unconscious for say, the last 18 to 24 months, are you excused.  If you haven’t been keeping up with the session and special session fiascoes, shame on you, too.  We’re fixin’ to go into yet another called session or two on school finance with no solution in sight.  And you can’t blame this mess on the scaredy cat dimocrats, either.  This particular mess is roosting square on the shoulders of our republican majority.

In Wilco’s world, we believe it is up to each and every voter to determine if your State Representative is representing your interests - as we elect them to do - or if they are placing their own ambition or interests, the interests of Speaker Craddick, and/or lobbyists and assorted special interest groups before yours.

If they don’t represent you anymore, then they deserve to be unelected.

Michael Moore (the murderer, not the overfed, overbearing dimocrat filmmaker), may soon grace us again with his presence, courtesy of a threatened civil lawsuit against the County.

According to the Austin American Statesman, Moore and another inmate, Christian Figueroa, had the run of the jail infirmary.  For nearly six months (September 2004 - March 2005), using his master burglar skills (spitwads and bits of cardboard), Moore was able to jam the locks of the infirmary doors and get lucky with an agreeable female inmate and, we guess, when she was not so agreeable, exposing all his shortcoming to others.  All the while, jail Sergeant Shultzes saw nothing, nothing, nothing….

One jailer was fired, two resigned, and a fourth was reassigned as a result of the affair (pun intended).  Jailers must now check that jail doors are actually closed and locked.  What a concept for a jail. 

FYI:  Sheriff Jim “the Grinch” Wilson was Sheriff up until December 31, 2004.  New Sheriff James Wilson took office January 1, 2005.  Sheriff James Wilson deserves a pass on this particular mess on account of the six month rule didn’t expire until June, 2005. 

The February issue of the Texas Observer offers up its take on Texas Judges. Not to be outdone by the usual trial-lawyer-hatin’-judge-bashing-tort-reformers, the Observer offers up bench warmers from all over Texas. Our very own Williamson County Court at Law jurists Tim Wright and Suzanne Brooks both got a “dishonorable mention” for failing to provide court appointed attorneys to our misdemeanor miscreants.

The source of all this statistical information is none other than the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition-a group of whiney, hand-wringin’ criminal coddlers. They do have a point-if we changed a lot of our laws (mostly drug laws and sex laws), we wouldn’t  have as many criminals (mostly druggies and preverts-or candidates for the Texas House). If we didn’t have as many criminals, then we wouldn’t need to keep building crossbar hotels to put them in.

Check out the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and decide for yourself.  Wonder if the Observer is going to give Brooks and Wright a plaque or something to go along with their award…

We admit we have been somewhat remiss in our coverage of the race for County Judge (in ballot order: Dan A. Gattis, Sr. and Charlie Culpepper).  Mostly, that’s because the County Judge’s job is a totally thankless position.  We guess it’s kind of like being the Vice-President.  You get to go to a bunch of rubber chicken banquets, a couple of funerals, and hang around the Capitol in Austin during the session.  You might get to go quail hunting if you’re lucky. 

On the down side, you have to preside over the gang of four on Commissioner’s Court.

There’s not a whole lot of difference between the two candidates on the issues.  Neither one wants to raise your taxes (but both probably will have to, given the growth of the County).  Both know their way around a budget.  Both have a great deal of experience dealing with egos, excuses, and exingencies. 

Culpepper is the more polished politico - having been elected and unelected over in Round Rock a couple of times (if you care how many times and in what positions, go Google it yourself) and claims he will effect consensus and a 5-0 vote on every issue.  That’s great if you believe that compromise and unanimity on every single issue is a good thing.  That’s not so great if county business grinds to a screetching halt while you wait for that 5-0 consensus - which may or may not be the result of some namecalling, armtwisting, and under-the-table backscratching.  

Gattis the First is making his maiden run for public office and - as such - isn’t fluent in political speak and empty promises… yet.  Having served a the General Manager of the Houston Lifestock Show and Rodeo, Gattis the First should well acquainted with the business end of livestock.  

There’s lots of ground pounding going on all over WilcoWorld, and none more so than in Precinct Four (Round Rock, Taylor, Hutto, Granger, Bartlett, Thrall, & points in between).  There, voters have a whole herd of choices for County Commissioner on their ballots. 

In ballot order, the candidates are:  Albert Filla, Louis F. Repa, Bobby Seiferman, Gary Coe, and Ron Morrison.  Come March 8, all but two will be able to rest their barking dogs (that means WilcoWise is taking the chicken’s way out, predicting a runoff but not saying who).  Haven’t heard of any fun candidate bashing - like over in Precinct Two (see Close Enough for Government Work).  All of them have websites, so check them out for yourself before you vote. 

Note to candidates & consultants:  There’s a difference between insure, ensure, and assure.  Every high school has an English teacher or two that can explain it to you.