Alderman Micki Ball Drops The Ball

Alderman Micki Ball has been one of the more proactive members of the Sandy Oaks City Council.  She is the only one of the 6 who pushed for the creation of, and took charge of,  the only committee to address problems.  She’s also one of the few who shows up to meetings prepared and is able to discuss topics in depth and has shown she is doing her own research instead of willingly accepting the spoon-fed information provided by Mayor Clement.

But during the greatest dilemma that residents of the City of Sandy Oaks have faced since the incorporation of the city, Alderman Micki Ball not only refused to publicly stand up for residents, she distanced herself from taking any responsibility whatsoever.  Ball volunteered to run for an office in which it is her job to represent the people in the city, and when they needed her the most, she let them down.

Alderman Micki Ball Refuses To Take Responsibility

In late December 2014 and early January 2015, Jim Clement sent out letters to home owners of the Waterwood subdivision.  He sent the letters under the title of President of the Waterwood Park Property Owner’s Association (WPPOA).  The purpose of the letters was to announce a WPPOA meeting on January 15th.  They also included a ballot for people to use to vote on a new amendment to the old bylaws.

It turns out that the vote wasn’t on an amendment, but was actually a vote to completely replace the original 7 page bylaws with a new set of bylaws totaling 32 pages.  There were also major issues with the ballot, including the fact that Jim Clement stated anyone who did not participate in the vote would automatically be counted as voting in favor of the new “amendment.”

The weeks leading up to the January 15th WPPOA meeting were much like the weeks leading up to the vote for incorporation.  There was no prior communication other than the minimal amount of effort of mailing the ballot, no one had a full amount of knowledge, and the only people who really knew the most amount of information were the members of the organization forcing itself on everyone.  This organization just so happened to include the exact same members of the Committee to Incorporate Sandy Oaks, which forced Incorporation on the community.

Residents were left trying to gather as much information as possible, meeting at each other’s houses, emailing people they knew, and trying to scrape information together to explain why Clement was trying to force an illegal ballot on Waterwood home owners.

The difference between the incorporation vote and the illegal WPPOA vote is that a new government had been created prior to the WPPOA vote.  Although the WPPOA is a separate entity from the city, it is still within the city limits.  Not only that, but the people being effected by the WPPOA issue are Sandy Oaks citizens.  Because of this, the City Council has a direct responsibility in being involved in the conflict that was occurring to its citizens.

Alderman Micki Ball collected information about the WPPOA.  She used her list of email contacts to spread the information.  However, she also stated clearly that she would not get involved:

 As a sitting city council member, I feel it is more important that others within the community be leading this charge to avoid any perceived conflict of interest.

This statement was at the end of a lengthy email which provided information to her contact list.  Ball supplied ammunition for others to use, such as how to delay the vote.  She even included the personal phone numbers and personal email addresses of Jim Clement, Pedro Orduno, and Charlotte Rabe and encouraged people to contact them.  But when it came to doing the dirty work of standing up for rights and freedoms, Ball used her elected position as an excuse.

But does Ball really care about conflicts of interest?

Alderman Micki Ball Allows Conflicts of Interest To Exist

Ball has had no problem with allowing conflicts of interest for the entire duration of her time on the City Council.

For example, Alderman Micki Ball approved the hiring of Art Martinez de Vara as City Attorney.  Before hand, Martinez de Vara was the legal adviser to the Committee to Incorporate Sandy Oaks (CISO), the legal adviser to the Sandy Oaks Political Action Committee (SOPAC), and had even been on retainer for the WPPOA.  Martinez de Vara had been behind every major political organization involved within the City of Sandy Oaks.

The biggest conflict of interest with Martinez de Vara is that he’s the Mayor of Von Ormy, another city in Bexar County.  Ball even recognizes this in a January 9th email:

Legal counsel has been provided to all three of these groups by Art Martinez de Vara, the mayor of Von Ormy and the sitting city attorney for Sandy Oaks.

But Ball voted to approve him as City Attorney .  She has never fought the issue since the hiring despite many complaints.  Instead, she has allowed the conflict of interest to continue.

Clement as Mayor and WPPOA President

Alderman Micki Ball has never publicly spoken out against Jim Clement being both Mayor and WPPOA president.

The subdivision of Waterwood makes up the majority of the City of Sandy Oaks.  This means that Clement is the leader of two different governing bodies that control the Waterwood area and can demand money from residents.  Here is what Ball said in a January 5th email:

I have asked Jim, why on the day he was elected as Mayor, did he not immediately tender his resignation from the WPPOA.  No response.   This is a concern of many I have heard from, and I echo the concerns. How can the Mayor hold positions in two “taxing” entities affecting the same citizens?  How can he effectively negotiate between the city and the WPPOA?  In my humble opinion, this is a serious conflict of interest.

Ball knew at the time the City Council formed that Clement was WPPOA president, but did nothing about it.  She never had the City Council address the issue at any Council meetings.  As a result, Clement was able to continue in both entities and was able force an illegal vote on WPPOA members 5 months after he took office as Mayor.

Rabe as City Clerk

When the City Council voted to approve Charlotte Rabe as the City Clerk, Alderman Micki Ball was the only one who voted against it.  Rabe was the treasurer of SOPAC, a member of CISO, and also Vice President of WPPOA.  But Ball never mentioned these issues when she voted against Rabe and didn’t make sure the Council fully discussed the conflict of interest.  The vote passed 4 to 1, but Ball had an opportunity to stand up for the community and avoided doing so.

Alderman Micki Ball has never spoken out against the multitude of extreme conflicts of interest that are embedded into the political system of Sandy Oaks.  Yet she told everyone that it would be a conflict of interest for her to get involved with the January WPPOA dilemma.

The Distinction

Ball is wrong that her potential involvement would be a conflict of interest.  Not only is it not remotely a conflict of interest for her, as a City Council member, to address the matter, it is her job and responsibility to do so.  The entire purpose of having an elected representative is to have someone who represents the people.  That job in particular, is at times when those people are being threatened by a large entity.

There is a difference between Ball being on the Council and getting involved with the WPPOA issue and Clement being both Mayor and WPPOA president at the same time.  When Clement holds two different positions of power he is filling two roles at once, which means that neither role can be successfully and efficiently performed.  It also means that his interest in one role may conflict with his duties in another.

For example, Clement stated in May 2014 that he wanted to transition the Waterwood clubhouse into a new City Hall for the city.  To do this, the owners of the property would have to give up the property to the city.  If those owners are the WPPOA then it will have to be okay with the WPPOA to transfer the property.  If Clement plans to pull off the transition then he must use the WPPOA to do so.  Clement is using his role as WPPOA president to get what he wants as Mayor.  Thus it is a conflict of interest that he is in both positions.

But this is different from Micki Ball holding a City Council position and getting involved in the WPPOA issue strictly as a city councilman looking to protect the citizens of the city.  Ball saying it is a conflict of interest for her to help citizens she represents is like a plumber saying it’s a conflict of interest for him to connect pipes.  Not only is it not a conflict of interest, it is Ball’s job and responsibility.

Clement and CISO forced city government on the people of the Waterwood area.  Part of having a city government means having an elected representative that fights for the people.  When Clement tried to force an illegal ballot on citizens, their representative, Alderman Micki Ball, passed her responsibility to others.

Alderman Micki Ball Manipulates Others

When Alderman Micki Ball said it would be a conflict of interest for her to be involved confronting the WPPOA she didn’t end there.  She passed on the responsibility to others.  Passing on the responsibility of actions that require taking a stand and becoming a target is what Ball does best.

In her emails addressing the WPPOA dilemma, Ball provided quite a lot of information and personal beliefs.  She provided just enough for other people to take the information, put ideas together, and take action on their own.  Ball even provided the means of action and the target for action by including the personal phone numbers and email addresses of Clement, Rabe, and Pedro Orduno.

Ball uses others to do her dirty work for her.  Standing up for injustices means sticking your neck out and holding firm to values and principles.  It also means being a target that others can attack.  Ball doesn’t intend to be a target, but she has found a way that she thinks will accomplish her goals, which is getting others to take her stand instead.

Ball Only Stands Up Anonymously

There is one way in which Alderman Ball does stand up for important issues.

Back in September of 2014 Mayor Clement tried to pass a retroactive tax on the City of Sandy Oaks.  The tax would have come out in less than a month and would have only given residents 3 months to come up with the money to pay a full year’s amount of taxes.  The City Council ended up not approving the tax, so Mayor Clement told outside media that he pushed for a zero cent tax rate.  News Radio WOAI even quotes Clement.

Alderman Ball did recognize that Mayor Clement lied, but not to his face, not during a council meeting, and not in any public way that required her to stick her neck out.  Instead, Ball used her “City of Sandy Oaks, TX” facebook page that she anonymously runs to point out Clement’s lying.  She even used the facebook page to further distribute the contact information of Clement, Rabe, and Orduno on the WPPOA issue.

Ball is a clever manipulator who uses other people to do her dirty work for her so that she can maintain her “sweet” status.  She thinks she gains by doing this because it allows her to get minor things done more smoothly.  But what she doesn’t realize is that she has set a precedent where playing games is more important than standing up for values and standards.

Because Micki recognizes that Mayor Clement lied and because she continues to not publicly address the immorality, she is actively allowing Clement to lie.  Ball can’t (legally) staple Clement’s mouth shut, but she can at least hold Clement accountable for when he harms Sandy Oaks residents.

By her actions, it is clear that Ball is more interested in playing political games than she is in helping the community.

Alderman Micki Ball Plays Games

Examples of Ball’s game playing tactics go back to before she became Alderman.

During the election campaign leading to the August 2014 City Council Election, Art Martinez de Vara published a newspaper called the Sandy Oaks Chronicle, which included a 2 page “voter’s guide.”  The newspaper lied about contacting and inviting all candidates to participate and only included SOPAC candidates.

Martinez de Vara made a rookie mistake with his newspaper and published it with a displayed website address without buying the address first.  This meant that whenever someone went to that address there was nothing there.  Until, that is, Micki Ball bought the address out from under Martinez de Vara.

When she bought the address she also used a privacy masking service that hides the owner name from the public.  This isn’t uncommon and it’s actually good practice.  But there are ways to find the owner of an address, including legal ways using a DMCA notice.  If Art Martinez de Vara wasn’t so mediocre at practicing law then he would have known this and wouldn’t have had to change his newspaper’s name to the Gazette.

Ball didn’t just buy the web address, she put it to use.  She set up an email contact form so that anyone who used it gave up their email, which meant she gained a way to contact people in the community.

Ball initially used SandyOaksChronicle.com to slam Martinez de Vara and SOPAC members.  But she also changed it to slam Pedro Orduno, accusing him of distributing copies of the Sandy Oaks Chronicle/Gazette on public school property, an action that is not legal.

Ball now runs the official website for the City of Sandy Oaks.  She has direct control over the emails that come into the site.  As website administrator, she even controls and has access to all the emails that are sent and received by other City Council members and City Employees.

Alderman Micki Ball Stopped Caring About The People

Alderman Micki Ball will not say what Art Martinez de Vara is making as City Attorney.  As a city employee, his salary should be public information, but Ball chooses to go against state law and refuses to discuss or divulge it.

Alderman Ball stated in her campaign for office that one of the major problems in the area was the lack of communication.  She stated it was what she wanted to work to improve.  But when a citizen in the community told the City Council that he and others were legally banned from the property where the Council meets, Ball did nothing to insure that the community was well informed that they could attend Council meetings.  At no time had the Council ever approved a lease agreement for the property and at no time had the Council ever sent official notifications out or created official signage ensuring that people knew of the location and time of council meetings.

Worrying about inconveniences such as including the community and standing up for values takes focus away from the things Ball now cares about.  Her focus is on further setting up and running the city government, but Ball forgets that the end purpose of the government is to serve the people she is neglecting.

The Other Aldermen Are Worse Than Alderman Micki Ball

Micki dropped the ball, but most of the time she’s been the only one who has been carrying it.  Alderman Gay attempts to belittle people who disagree with him, Ortega has never once asked a single question since taking office, and if there’s a pen in Tomasini’s hand to take notes it’s because God miracled it there.  In fact, Tomasini proved he either doesn’t care about conflicts of interest or isn’t intelligent enough to recognize them.  Shortly after taking office in August 2014 he told someone:

I am unaware of any conflict of interest with our mayor as head of the WPPOA, the City Attorney, and the City of Von Ormy.  If you have any specific example or complaint, please advise

What’s sad is that Micki Ball thinks that Clement is the “Fall-guy” who is going to take the blame for when things go bad in the city.  But what she doesn’t seem to understand is that Clement has set her up to take the blame on many issues.  Ball is the only Alderman who has taken on the responsibility of a committee to address various issues in the community.  When one of those issues goes south, Clement will not hesitate to shove all blame on Ball.  God grants everyone a gift, and the only gift Clement got was the ability to avoid responsibility.

The City Council is led by a man starving for power and who cares little about the people he must abuse to keep or gain power.  The person who has questioned him the most has been Alderman Micki Ball.  But if Ball actually took a stand on the most important issues instead of waiting for others to do it for her, if Ball would be more outspoken about the serious problems that people are worried about, and if Ball would stop playing games, then the only woman on the Sandy Oaks City Council would also be the only true leader.