Hays County government: By and for the well connected people

When voters remove these special interest supported public officials from office, the deposed officials are often rewarded with jobs. Typically, these jobs are to use their connections to influence the new officials. It is this long-standing symbiotic relationship that has led to a culture of corruption in Hays County

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Part I – How Special Interests Become Well Connected to Government

By Charles O'Dell, Ph.D.

Being well connected to public officials is a recipe for financial gain. Making substantial election campaign contributions is the most obvious means of demonstrating connections with elected officials, and the bigger the contribution the stronger the connection.

Business interests, especially those outside the election jurisdiction, have no political interest in an election outcome. The only reason for special interests to make financial contributions to election campaigns is their expectation of future financial reward. Careful review of campaign financial reports can identify the special interests seeking these financial rewards from public funds.

Our election laws make some attempt to address campaign corruption by prohibiting direct corporate campaign contributions. Still, loopholes in the law allow contributions by corporation owners and employees, and by political action committees (PAC) that are funded by corporations and professional firms. Frequent users of these loopholes include engineering firms, law firms, construction firms and consulting firms.

These loopholes create opportunities for corporations to shortcut campaign laws. We uncovered one case where employees of an engineering firm vying for the Hays County 2001 road bond management contract contributed $1,500 each to Hays County Precinct 3 Commissioner Bill Burnett (son of PEC Walter “Bud” Burnett). The three Turner Collie & Braden employees lived in Ft. Worth, Houston and Austin. Through his direct intervention in the County Review Committee process, Commissioner Burnett was able to get the court to award TCB the management contract, and Burnett collected at least $4,500 in campaign contributions.

Suspected illegal activity is not investigated in Hays County

We believed this was a case of illegal quid pro quo and campaign laundering of corporate contributions similar to the case involving U.S. Representative Tom DeLay that former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle successfully prosecuted. Suspected illegal campaign behavior isn’t actively investigated or prosecuted in Hays County. Burnett, while serving as county commissioner was also employed by Houston firm, Dannenbaum Engineering, and now works for Loomis Partners of Austin, another special interest firm currently feeding at the Hays County public trough. Dannenbaum was awarded a contract valued at more than one million dollars.

Many public projects involve an array of professional services, and firms will often collaborate to support a particular candidate for office. For example, a road bond project involves a bond attorney, financial advisor, an eminent domain attorney, transportation consultant, design engineering firm, project engineering firm, road construction firms, and the list goes on.

County Commissioners Jeff Barton (Pct. 2, D-Mountain City) and Will Conley (Pct. 3, R-Wimberley)

Recent examples of collaborating to elect special interest candidates include Loomis Partners, Inc., Prime Strategies, Dannenbaum Engineering, Klotz Associates Inc., and Smith, Robertson, Elliott, Glen, Klein & Bell, L.L.P.. Principals and/or employees from each of these firms made significant financial contributions to the election campaigns of county commissioners Jeff Barton and Will Conley, and collectively these companies have been awarded millions of dollars in contracts for Hays County projects. These special interests may have also laundered campaign contributions that we did not catch.

Even though the processes through which public contracts awarded to well connected special interests are camouflaged, alert citizens are able to spot the connections.

Conley, who used to openly detest citizen advisory committees, was converted by Barton who regularly uses the committee approach for his political cover. These commissioners’ court appointed citizens advisory groups are typically packed with citizens who follow the bidding of commissioners Barton, Conley and Debbie Ingalsbe, and when they do act independently, as in the case of CPAT (Citizens Parks Advisory Team), commissioners’ court simply by-passes and ignores committee recommendations.

The road bond – a very expensive case in point

The 2008 road bond is an excellent case in point of official camouflage. After suffering a stinging defeat from voters in 2007, a more orchestrated approach was created by Barton to “sell” his extravagant, wasteful and unnecessary 2008 road bond for his special interests.

First, local government entities were invited to submit their highest priority road projects. Then a consultant firm was hired to quickly conduct “public workshops” to give the impression of public input, when in fact the options presented in these hastily organized and poorly attended public workshops were predetermined by Barton and Conley.

Following the hasty, expensive and propaganda purpose public workshops, commissioners’ court approved, under Barton’s initiative, expenditure of hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to pay for a road bond web site, and to create an expensive propaganda brochure that was mailed to about 60,000 Hays County households. Barton and Conley were also members of the special interest PAC, Citizens for Safe Roads and Mobility, who put out the same false and misleading information about the road bond. The Barton newspapers then used this PAC information as a cover to broadcast the official road bond propaganda. Barton, part owner of Austin engineering firm, Doucet & Associates Inc., and Conley are now in the process of rewarding their special road interest firms. Property owners will see the higher taxes for many years.

Left unchecked, government becomes dominated by special interests, and a culture of corruption becomes established. Special interests finance the elected officials who in turn reward the special interests.

The three most lucrative official avenues for rewarding well connected special interests are through development permitting, influencing where public infrastructure is built, and awarding public project contracts.

Our elected officials oversee public employees, control the public purse string and make decisions on how public money is spent.

This authority is not lost on special interests, and what better way for special interests to make a connection to public officials than to make significant election campaign contributions.

When voters remove these special interest supported public officials from office, they are often rewarded with jobs. Typically, these jobs are to use their connections to influence the new officials. It is this long-standing symbiotic relationship that has lead to a culture of corruption in Hays County.

Corruption in government results in wasteful spending, cronyism, selective enforcement of our laws, special favors, higher but unequal taxation and a diminished community.

Part II of Government By and For the Well Connected People will describe the culture of corruption as it exists now in Hays County, and will expose specific cases of corruption, unfairness and injustice in county and municipal government.

As co-founder of Hays Community Action Network (HaysCAN) in 2003, Mr. O’Dell strives to carry out the mission of ensuring open, accessible and accountable government. He is a long time and close observer of the workings of the Hays County Commissioners Court. He earned a degree in Agricultural Education and a Masters in Ag Economics at Texas Tech, and, later, a Ph.D. at The University of Maryland while employed as a Research Economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C. Texas born and raised on a family farm, O’Dell is a Hays County Master Naturalist and a board member of the Ethical Society of Austin.