OP/ED Piece in the FB SUN Today (Comments on Goff Smears):
Views on apartments shared by many
11/14/2005
It has this community divided."
He stated that this issue of additional apartments had created a firestorm that has the council back to its conflicted way of functioning of three years ago, at which time the council as a group sought professional counseling to reduce the conflict. Mayor Owen made these comments following my comments to the council about the problem of how they were handling some things for our city.
Anyone can go to the Missouri City home page on the internet at http://www.ci.mocity.tx.us and follow the links to see the video of this meeting and hear these comments for themselves.
In marked contrast to the mayor's publicly stated opinion about an issue that has the entire community and the city council itself divided, your paper published on the front page of your November 9, 2005, issue quotations from Doug Goff, senior vice president & director of Land Development of the Johnson Development Corporation. Mr. Goff is quoted as saying that "By doing this (postings made under different aliases on a blog site), Mr. Calvin gave the false impression that the views he was espousing ... were shared by a large number of Sienna Plantation residents." This front page story in part created the impression that this issue of new apartments in the area was only between Mr. Calvin and SJDC, and that the impression that it was not an issue for others in our community was false.
I have no basis for disputing all of the quotes of Mr. Goff in this article, but this one critical aspect is definitely wrong. Mr. Calvin's views about not wanting additional apartments in the Missouri City area are shared by many and has the entire community itself divided, as Mayor Owen said. Mr. Calvin appears to be one of the most vocal individuals who is unwilling to be intimidated into keeping his views to himself. Many people in our community, people who are not willing to expose themselves to the attacks of a large and powerful corporation, share some of Mr. Calvin's views. Although Mr. Goff's seeming attacks on Chris Calvin apparently are legal, they do not appear to me personally to be fair or helpful to healing our community.
I also feel that your paper publishing only Mr. Goff's quotes on the first page and then quoting Mr. Calvin and Mr. Feinberg on the second page added to the impression that Mr. Goff's words were more important and carried more weight than their quotes. I was taught that the more important things are on the first page of a newspaper and the less important things are on other pages.
Your paper is an important source of information to our community. We need you to be fair and accurate in appearance as well as fact.
Paul Malone
Missouri City
posted by responsible_dvlpmnt at Tuesday, November 15, 2005
20 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Good points all Paul!
Somewhat related issue going on within the republican ranks and comments on an article in FortBendNow.com:
More Local News
Question Over Thode Residence Fuels Republican Party Flap
by Bob Dunn, Nov 14, 03:42 pm
A simmering feud inside the Fort Bend County Republican Party has hit boiling point, fueled by Party Chairman Eric Thode’s change of residence.
Thode said last month his Sugar Land house was on the market, and he intends to resign his post after the March primary elections.
But some members of the county party’s executive committee are upset because Thode has sold his Sugar Land house and appears to have moved into a house in Houston – in Harris County – where he and his wife have claimed a homestead tax exemption. They question whether he’s legally eligible to serve as party chairman if that’s the case.
“My voter registration card has me listed at 3319 Deerwood Lane, Missouri City,” Thode said on Monday. He acknowledged that that is his parents’ address, but said it’s a valid voter registration location under the law. He compared it to President Bush living in the White House “but being registered” for voting purposes “at the Houstonian.”
According to the Texas Election Code, in order to be eligible to be a political party officer, a person must be a “qualified voter” and to be “qualified,” among other things, must be a legal resident of the county in which he or she holds office.
According to the code, establishing legal residence “means domicile, that is, one’s home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence.” And, according to the code, “A person does not lose the person’s residence by leaving the person’s home to go to another place for temporary purposes only.”
Said one precinct chairman, “The question here is, is it Eric’s position that he intends to return to his mom’s house in Missouri City and that his house in Harris County” is a temporary residence?
“Either we go by the laws and rules, or we don’t,” said another precinct chairman.
Thode, who has been party chairman since 1992, insists he’s “perfectly within the law,” and maintained that those raising questions about his residency and legal requirements to hold office are part of “the same wacko wing” of the county party that complains because they haven’t gotten their way during his chairmanship.
“If that gives them their jollies, good for them,” Thode said. “What are they going to get out of this? I’m not resigning. They’re not going to force me out. They gain nothing.”
Jacqueline Blankenship, a precinct chairman from Richmond, said it may be OK with the state Ethics Commission that Thode resides outside the county, but “It’s not OK with me. I personally feel that if the man has moved to Harris County, he should let the precinct chairmen appoint” a successor to serve out Thode’s term as party chairman, until a replacement is elected in March.
Thode said his supporters occupy 75% of the seats on the Fort Bend County Republican Party Executive Committee, and thus, “whoever I wanted to become county chairman, would be county chairman.” But he said what is proper is for all interested candidates to file in December “and let the voters decide.”
William Benton, a precinct chairman from Rosenberg, said he has no interest in “trying to kick a man as he’s heading out the door.” However, Benton added, “if it is determined that he’s ineligible, then he should consider resigning.”
Regardless of whether that happens, though, Benton said he’s “very happy and optimistic about the future of our local Republican Party. We’ll look ahead, and not behind.”
Comments:
1 Eric Thode - Nov 14, 10:07 pm
Bob—
Thanks for the article. Your “boiling point” analogy is a bit over the top, since no one as called me or snet me an email regarding this issue prior to your call today.
Interestingly, two of the people in your article, who are so angry, are too embarrassed by their position to allow themselves to be publicly identified. Big surprise…that’s how most of the “wacko wing” operates. Pseudonyms on blogs and lobbing bombs at others under the cloak of darkness. It is really quite sad.
The Republican voters of Fort Bend have every right to elect whoever they see fit in the upcoming Primary Election and it is my goal to allow them to do this. Additionally, by serving out my term, I will be able to leave the next Chairman with $100,000 to $125,000 in the bank for the 2006 elections, which is significantly more than the $1,000 that was in the bank in 1992 when I took office. Keep in mind, none of this money has been provided by members of the “wacko wing,” who prefer to tear the Party apart rather than build it up.
Thanks again for the opportunity to reiterate my belief that Fort Bend Republicans should choose my successor rather than the Executive Committee.
Eric
2 Chris Elam - Nov 14, 11:20 pm
Whether you love him or loathe him, retiring Ft Bend Co. Chair Eric Thode needs to be allowed to retire in peace without all the sniping and attacks about his residency and email list, etc.
Eric will be officially retired in 3 1/2 months. Surely Fort Bend GOPers, even those who have a problem with Eric, can contain themselves for that long and allow the transition to new party leadership to occur in a friendly atmosphere.
How about we confine our attacks to liberal Democrats for a while…
They deserve it.
3 Chris D. Calvin, Ph.D. - Nov 15, 11:27 am
That’s funny, but not surprising, that Chris E. is coming to Thode’s defense. Many rank and file republicans, like myself, feel betrayed by the self annointed “fat cat” crowd currently heading our party. Bob Dunn has done a wonderful job getting the real news out and not burying it like the EDC backed repubs have done in recent local papers. Mayor Owen, our local EDC developer backed mayor, was quoted in the FB Star asking local newspapers not to report controversy (see quote below).
Thanks Bob for getting the REAL news out! This party needs rocking!
From the FB Star—"People read the local papers to get the feel of a community, which is why it is critical that they read about good things rather than negative ones."—Mayor Allen Owen
(see his campaign contributions list at http://www.brazosriver.com/locals.htm )
4 Brian Gaston - Nov 15, 01:07 pm
The real question on the County Chairman’s situation is when do the rules apply and when don’t they apply?
Like him or dislike him, it is clear that Thode has attempted to circumvent the residency requirements of holding an elected office by saying his voting residence is his mother’s house even though he has filed for a homestead exemption in Harris County and has obviously taken up residence there since October. This is not a matter of just a few days.
In addition, Thode has continued to use his party position as a forum to attack other Republicans and elected officials. This is the behavior of a vindictive and petty demagogue, not a leader.
In the state election code, “ . . . . . according to Section 1.015 of the Texas Election Code, “residence means domicile, that is, one’s home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence.” It is largely determined by a person’s intent. Our office is not in a position to determine whether an individual resides in a given location or not.
For purposes of the candidacy process, the candidate swears to a specific description of his or her residence and the length of time on the face of the application form. . . . . .”
The County Executive Committee has the responsibility to follow the rules and for Thode to insinuate he solely controls the committee would be an insult to most responsible chairmen.
If he were a leader, he would have resigned gracefully when he moved in October and would have let the committee do its job.
Attempting to make this a purely personality issue ignores the ethical and accountability elements and is a disservice to all Republicans across the spectrum in Fort Bend County.
This quote seems appropriate:
state Pring and Canan (legal experts on SLAPPs). "Today, you and your friends, neighbors, co-workers, community leaders, and clients can be sued for millions of dollars just for telling the government what you think, want, or believe in. Both individuals and groups are now being routinely sued in multimillion-dollar damage actions for such 'all-American' political activities as circulating a petition, writing a letter to the editor, testifying at a public hearing, reporting violations of law, lobbying for legislation, peaceful demonstrating, or otherwise attempting to influence government action."
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With JDC executives claiming they aren't going to sue Matthew you'd think they would agree to release him from liability. They also claimed that they weren't after the users of his site that used no aliases, but they went after Matthew and he was one of only a few not posting anonymously.
Why aren't they after the other 230+ registered anonymous users of the old MissouriTalk & SiennaTalk.com?
Hello All,
We would like to encourage Missouri City residents and local residents of neighborhoods like Lake Olympia, Colony Lakes, Sienna Plantation, Quail Valley, Riverstone, First Colony, Bright Water, Silver Ridge, Oyster Creek, Waterbrook & Waterbrook West, West Point, and others to create their own web-blogs and link them to each other. You can contact us at responsible_dvlpmnt@yahoo.com for more on this effort. Let us as residents and voters begin to look at our common interest and work together to exert our political influence as homeowners in this town that we have so little say in.--E-mail today!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
That's a great idea!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Here's a daily thought:
"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy."
Gibran
Ck this one out:
A new client had just come in to see a famous lawyer.
"Can you tell me how much you charge?", said the client.
"Of course", the lawyer replied, "I charge $200 to answer three questions!"
"Well that's a bit steep, isn't it?"
"Yes it is", said the lawyer, "And what's your third question?"
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hello: responsible_dvlpmnt, I was looking for some information on Texas criminal defense and found your site. I'm sure you know how it is when you start to read a interesting post…most time you just have to read it all. Bottom line, I've enjoyed reading your Blog. I’ve got you bookmarked for the future. I’m off again in search of the info I seek . Thanks for the read!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
We just found this related site (another Johnson Development Community). Check it out at
http://www.silverlaketexas.com/HBS/
--are the Sienna bylaws set up this same way?
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed,
it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
Great article from http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/petition/topic.aspx?topic=slapp:
Overview>
By Lori Potter
Attorney, Kelly, Haglund, Garnsey & Kahn
Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined. — Judge J. Nicholas Colabella (1992)
Strong statement or overstatement? Judge Colabella was referring to the threat posed by Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or "SLAPPs." SLAPPs are lawsuits filed in response to or retaliation for citizen communications with government entities and employees.
Citizens have been sued for testifying before their city councils and county commissions, about building permit and zoning change applications, for expressing concerns to school board members, and for reporting violations of environmental laws to regulatory agencies, to give just three of thousands of examples. In short, these citizens were sued for doing exactly what the Constitution allows and encourages them to do, which accounts for Colabella’s strong words in Gordon v. Marrone, a 1992 New York case.
The particular provision of the First Amendment that is threatened by SLAPPs is the petition clause ("Congress shall make no law " abridging the " right of the people " to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"). George Pring and Penelope Canan, the authors of the leading work on the topic, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out (and the coiners of the acronym), have dubbed the petition clause "the unknown soldier of the Bill of Rights."
While the petition clause may be less renowned than the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech, press and religion, the right it protects is every bit as basic to our form of government.
In a representative democracy, public participation is the cornerstone of the system; it is a bedrock principle that connects government to the governed. It legitimizes the system and helps to make government accountable. On a day-to-day basis we rarely think about it in the exalted terms of its intellectual, legal or policy underpinnings, which go back to Aristotle and the Magna Carta, among other sources. We simply take for granted what is both obvious and invisible: Public participation in government is a creed by which the nation lives. Public participation — i.e., petitioning — ranges from the sublime to the messy, but it is authorized and encouraged by procedures and forms at every level of every branch of our government. That is why being sued for engaging in petitioning activities not only strikes one as incongruous but indeed is antithetical to our form of constitutional democracy.
The phenomenon of suing an individual who communicates with or tries to influence the government is common. Pring and Canan’s national study in the early 1990s found thousands of examples of SLAPPs. Their study also found countless additional examples of threats of lawsuits that had the same desired effect: causing citizens to rethink and retreat from their public participation for fear of costly and time-consuming litigation.
SLAPP complaints do not arrive bearing claims labeled as "SLAPPs." Typically, a "SLAPPer" brings causes of action for defamation, conspiracy, abuse of process, interference with contract, and other common-law claims. As Pring and Canan point out, the first — and sometimes highest — hurdle for an attorney defending against a SLAPP for the first time is recognizing that what may appear to be a garden-variety tort claim is not, and that such a claim may be effectively prevented from becoming a lawsuit if it targets speech to any branch of government.
Petition-clause immunity as a defense against SLAPPs
When SLAPPs are defended against on the basis of the petition clause of the First Amendment, nearly all such litigation is dismissed, or summary judgment is entered for the defendant, as Pring and Canan note. Consequently, most of the reported case law is favorable to SLAPP defendants. This lopsided win-loss record has done nothing to discourage the filing of SLAPPs, however. Pring and Canan concluded that SLAPPers do not sue to achieve a litigation outcome; rather, they file to silence their opposition. Generally, the mere filing of the suit — or just the threat of suit — accomplishes that purpose.
The U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts (and many state courts) have found that the petition clause provides an immunity to citizens who speak out to influence the government. This immunity is sometimes known as Noerr-Pennington immunity, because it has its roots in a line of antitrust cases that hold that efforts to influence public officials through lobbying, publicity, and other contact are protected by the petition clause (and are not a violation of antitrust law) even when the petitioning activity is undertaken for a disfavored motive, such as eliminating competition. (See United Mine Workers v. Pennington, 1965; Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, 1961.)
Later Supreme Court decisions also make clear that "Noerr-Pennington immunity" is synonymous with First Amendment immunity and applies to petitioning and to claims outside the antitrust context. For example, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982), the Court overturned judgments in favor of merchants whose businesses had been economically harmed by a boycott. The NAACP organized a boycott and picketing to support its petition to the local government for passage of anti-discrimination laws to advance racial equality and integration. The Court relied on the Noerr-Pennington line of cases and held that all of the NAACP’s conduct was immunized by the First Amendment, notwithstanding the incidental economic impact on merchants. Accordingly, the Court overturned the holdings of the state courts of Mississippi and accorded immunity to the NAACP against state-law claims.
Two more-recent Supreme Court decisions in antitrust litigation, Professional Real Estate Investors v. Columbia Pictures, (1993) and Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Advertising (1991), applied petition-clause analysis and clarified the burden faced by a plaintiff challenging petitioning activity. When it appears that a plaintiff’s claims are lodged in response to a defendant’s legitimate use of government processes, a court must apply heightened scrutiny to those claims and dismiss them unless they can clear a high barrier.
Under the test first articulated in Omni, a defendant is entitled to immunity unless a plaintiff can demonstrate that defendant’s petitioning was "a sham." This requires the plaintiff to prove that a defendant used government processes as a "weapon." This inquiry looks not at the defendant’s intent or purpose, but at whether the defendant’s efforts were not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action at all. So long as the defendant acts to obtain a government outcome — a decision, action, or refusal to act — the defendant’s petitioning is not a sham and enjoys immunity under the petition clause. A winning petition — e.g., a successful lawsuit, or a request to an administrative agency that is acted upon favorably — by definition is not "a sham." At the motion-to-dismiss or summary-judgment stage, then, the standard is an objective one that looks to the outcome of the process defendant engaged in, not a subjective one that looks to defendant’s intent. This result is consistent with the petition-clause goal of encouraging and protecting speech directed to the government.
Professional Real Estate Investors presented the question of petition-clause immunity as applied to counterclaims in litigation and set forth a two-part definition of "sham." The first prong requires a plaintiff to show that a citizen’s communications with government agencies were "objectively baseless." The second prong, which a court need not even consider if a plaintiff cannot satisfy the first, is the test articulated in Omni: whether the defendant’s communications were not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action. The SLAPPer bears the burden of proof on both prongs and must meet that burden at the motion-to-dismiss or summary-judgment stage of the case.
Many state courts have fashioned similar tests under the petition clauses of their state constitutions, or have applied First Amendment petition-clause immunity to claims arising in state courts. (See, e.g., Protect Our Mountain Environment, Inc. v. District Court, a 1984 Colorado case. The “sham” burden of proof has been codified in some states’ anti-SLAPP statutes. (See a list of states with laws protecting SLAPP victims.)
Disposing of cases on the basis of petition-clause immunity
The policy underlying First Amendment immunity requires prompt dismissal of claims invalidated by petition-clause immunity, sparing the courts and litigants the costs and time otherwise expended on litigation targeted at protected petitioning activities. Although experience shows that nearly all claims targeting petitioning are eventually dismissed, the mere filing of the action causes a citizen to pay a high price in time, money and peace of mind for having exercised the constitutional right to petition the government.
In the Omni case, the Supreme Court indicated that in order to achieve the goal of minimizing intrusion on the First Amendment, lawsuits that attack constitutionally protected petitioning activities must be dismissed by the court on motion, not heard by a jury at trial, except in those rare instances when a plaintiff can prove the defendant’s petitioning comes within the "sham" exception to immunity. First Amendment petitioning activity is chilled by allowing a plaintiff to conduct discovery, go to trial, and otherwise exhaust the time and resources of a defendant on claims that cannot cross the immunity threshold.
Courts also have achieved the goal of early review and dismissal by enforcing strict pleading standards as a result of the assertion of immunity as a ground for dismissal. (Pleading standards are the legal requirements for pleading a cause of action in court.) Where a claim touches upon the right to petition, many courts will apply a heightened pleading standard (see, e.g., Oregon Natural Resources Council v. Mohla, a 1991 case from the 9th Circuit). These courts concur with the conclusion Pring and Canan made after their study: There is a danger that the mere filing of the action will chill the exercise of First Amendment rights, and this demands more specific allegations than would otherwise be required. Specifically, a plaintiff cannot overcome the target’s First Amendment immunity if it fails to allege that defendant communicated with government for a reason other than to support petitioning activity. In other words, some courts have held that to survive a motion to dismiss a plaintiff must allege that defendant engaged in tortious activity for some purpose other than to influence a governmental agency or process. The certification requirements of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and its state counterparts would apply to such allegations.
This statement is very telling about Goff:
"Although Mr. Goff's seeming attacks on Chris Calvin apparently are legal, they do not appear to me personally to be fair or helpful to healing our community."
They must not have any interest in "healing" the community only manipulating it for their own profits!
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