For The Record

Item 14.E was posted as telepsychiatry for jail inmates and detained juveniles. The Chair announced “revised language” and read a different item: telepsychiatry for the probate courts. The word probate appears nowhere in the packet.

Three road agreements with the City of Roanoke passed in about a minute, all in Precinct 4. The captions put the county’s share at $225,000, $180,000 and $1,650,000. Two of them say in writing that the county intends to reach $2,250,000 and $1,800,000 once bonds issue. Announced, $2,055,000. On paper, $5,700,000, exactly half of all three projects.

Four County Auditor’s certificates, all four blank where the Auditor signs. Roanoke’s mayor signed. The architect signed. Every Denton County line is empty.

The Court committed $93,000 for 312 hours of psychiatry at $300 an hour. That multiplies to $93,600.

The consent agenda was voted before it was read, fifth meeting running, and item 2.A arrived empty for the 11th time.

Before closing the door on two department heads, the Judge told the public there was “nothing to be alarmed about or speculating about.” Both came back with no action.

Then the Chair said this from the dais: “We have revised language for 14E.” What he read was telepsychiatry “for the Denton County probate courts,” paid out of a probate court line. Motion, second, unanimous, no discussion.

The word probate appears nowhere in this 359 page packet. Every page of item 14.E names the jail and juvenile detention. A resident who read the agenda was told this county was buying psychiatric care for people it locks up. What passed was for somebody else.

The money doesn’t work either. The amendment sets a psychiatrist at $300 an hour, 12 hours a week, 26 weeks a year. That is 312 hours. That is $93,600. The caption, the memo, the court order and the Chair all say $93,000.

Post what you are actually voting on. Then check the multiplication.

Commissioner Precinct 3 Mitchell moved, Commissioner Precinct 4 Edmondson seconded, carried unanimously. Then the Chair read what had already passed: the Order Making Appointments, $5,000 moved out of pharmacy to buy Public Health a replacement LED dental light, and $800 out of Economic Development’s training and travel line for promotional items.

Fifth meeting running. March 3, March 10, March 17, March 24, and this one.

Nothing on that list was going to break the county. That is the point. This is a small, clean consent agenda and it still got voted before it got described, which tells you the habit has nothing to do with the stakes. It is just the habit.

Item 2.A came in the same way it has at all 11 meetings this year. Pages 7 through 9: a routing form, the caption again, and an unexecuted court order. That order prints all five members by name, each with a Yes, Abstain, No and Absent box beside them. It names nobody being appointed.

The reading takes 20 seconds. Do it before the vote instead of after.

Three ride the Roanoke road agreements, pages 316, 329 and 342. Each reads: “I hereby certify funds are available to accomplish and pay the obligation of Denton County, Texas, under this Agreement.” None of the three has a line for an amount. All three sit empty above the words “Denton County Auditor.”

The fourth, page 301, backs the courthouse restoration agreement with the architect, and it is a different form. It reads: “I certify that funds are available in the amount of $________ to satisfy the obligation of Denton County.” That one does ask. The amount is blank, and so is the signature over Jeff May’s printed name.

The county owns a certificate that asks how much. On all three roads it used the one that never asks.

Then look at who did sign. Roanoke’s mayor signed under the city seal. The city secretary attested. The architect signed and dated it March 23. Every Denton County line on all four documents is empty.

Sign it, and put the number on it.

He opened by naming the problem himself. “I don’t know everyone’s faith tradition in the room, but as Christians, we celebrate this week.” Then he asked peace for people in conflict, “whether they’re uniformed and in service to others or if that conflict is more local, more intimate, if that conflict is within families or if it’s within ourselves.” He asked wisdom for the Court.

It ran 456 words and closed by praying through the name of Jesus.

He named the problem out loud, and then led the prayer in his faith anyway, from the government's podium, because that is what the standing agenda item told him to do.

10 of the 11 invocations this year have come from a county department head, a member of this Court, the Sheriff, or his chaplain.

Put a moment of silence in that slot and nobody has to be a guest at their own county’s meeting.

Before they went, the Judge told the room, unprompted, that when the public sees department heads on a closed session agenda, “these are normal and routine annual conversations that we have sometimes twice a year,” and that there is “nothing to be alarmed about or speculating about.”

Look at what that actually is. The presiding officer, from the bench, telling residents in advance not to wonder about a door he controls. He did not open it. He did not say what the conversations were about. He asked people not to ask.

People ask because of the record. Both items were posted under the full statutory menu, “the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal,” of the Budget Officer and of the Technology Services Chief Information Officer. Both came back with no action. So did both department head items the week before. Four department heads in eight days, four closed conversations, nothing decided in the open and nothing explained after.

If it is a routine annual evaluation, post it as an evaluation. That ends the speculation in one word, and it does not require asking anybody to stop looking.

The captions read out loud put the county’s share at $225,000, $180,000 and $1,650,000. That is $2,055,000.

Now open the agreements. Howe Road calls its $225,000 an “initial amount,” and says that upon issuance of additional bond funds the agreement “is intended to be amended at a future date” to a county commitment not to exceed $2,250,000. North Oak Street does the same, $180,000 initial, $1,800,000 intended. North Walnut Street is already at $1,650,000.

The county’s stated intent across the three is $5,700,000. The three projects cost $11,400,000. Exactly half.

Nobody said $2,250,000 out loud. Nobody said $1,800,000. North Oak’s number sits on a page no search can read.

Last week’s Lake Dallas agreement did the same thing. $11,110,000 committed, $17,060,000 intended, printed once, never spoken.

Say the number the county intends to pay, not the number it pays this month.