Second letter: What about Barton's other job?

If this is the age of transparency and an absence of conflicts of interests surely Commissioner Barton will tell us about his Doucet connection


Last September, Hays County Commissioner Jeff Barton voted FOR a pay raise for himself and the other Commissioners, but he also made a big deal of telling the public that he wasn’t going to take that pay raise. I thought that was a little strange, but I also thought it might have to do with the fact that he supplemented his just shy of $75,000 County Commissioner pay with money from Doucet and Associates. As many government watch dogs know, Barton is a part owner and the Manager of Land Use and Planning for Doucet and Associates, an engineering and planning firm that does a lot of work in Hays County.

Now we find out that Barton has changed his mind and is taking the pay raise after all, his apparent justification being that a citizens committee says it’s warranted. Okay – maybe so, but I would sure like to know more about Commissioner Barton’s connection to this planning and engineering firm that apparently does a lot of work in Hays County. Can anyone shed any light on this? If this is the age of transparency and an absence of conflicts of interests surely Commissioner Barton will tell us about his Doucet connection.

Susan Cook
Driftwood, Tx