Excuse us if we don’t immediately applaud Odessa’s City Council for removing Kris Crow and Jeff Russell from their Odessa Development Corporation leadership positions.
Don’t get us wrong — we are thrilled these two have been tossed aside. They are divisive and bad for all of Odessa. Russell’s fake news site (Odessa Headlines) has spread more manure than a busy farmer.
And Crow? Lord, where to begin. He and his wife, Tisha, who was recently ousted from her GOP County Chair role by voters, are the architects of much of what is truly wrong in our city.
That includes helping elect the City Council squad members who just voted Kris Crow and Russell off of the ODC.
That’s right. The Crows and Russell worked so hard to get the squad elected, we sometimes wonder if all of the recent drama is an example of ugly politics or a Manchurian Candidate-style ploy to hoodwink voters.
We’re not alone.
We’ve heard from many of you who are not buying that Mayor Javier Joven and Councilmembers Denise Swanner and Mark Matta have really broken up with the Crow/Russell faction. They, too, wonder if this is all meant to distract from the truly terrible job Joven, Swanner and Matta have done in Odessa.
In fact, many of you point to a seminar hosted by the Ector County GOP last November. That event was a super-secret spy seminar to teach these great Republicans how to distract voters and how to spy on friends and neighbors and those pesky political opponents. That meeting cost more than $12,000 and was paid for out of county GOP funds.
That’s right! Under Crow/Russell leadership folks were trained how to be subversive and how to use burner laptops to stir things up on social media.
It didn’t matter if the social media stirs were true or not. Just distract, distract, distract.
Is this recent drama a distraction from the bad job of the squad?
After Thursday night, we’re leaning toward it being a true breakup as Crow/Russell issued a “news release” quoting themselves as the former ODC president and vice president. They suggested the council got rid of them because they were doing too good a job of ensuring checks and balances on the development board. They ended the release vowing: “We are far from done.”
We think it could be quite a show this election with all members of the squad being challenged by strong candidates.
Sure the fake news Odessa’s Accountability Project will probably continue to parrot the nonsense and lies of the squad. Oh, and don’t forget the City of Odessa Facebook page, which exists to display photos of these squad members and to try and fool Odessans into thinking all is good and peachy in Odessa, Texas.
On Friday a long, rambling post by Joven (made about as much sense as usual) was posted to the City’s Facebook instead of on Joven’s page where it belonged.
Fake news. That’s right, these squad members use your tax dollars to pay a hefty amount to a group of folks to take delightful photos of them smiling at the camera as if Rome isn’t burning.
It is on fire. It’s on fire with these squad members trying to make Odessans believe they cared about our water and roads before they were challenged for their seats.
They want you to believe the loss of the City’s credit rating “was no big deal.”
They want you to believe the mass exodus of longtime employees by firing, resignations and retirements is no big deal. After all, they have a city manager with zero experience now to run things. Oh, and don’t forget the City employee who reportedly used his city vehicle to drive back and forth to his home in Lubbock, all the while collecting a car stipend of $6,000 a year.
More resignations are rolling in. How many more have to resign until no one knows how to file paperwork necessary to get a credit rating? Wait! That already happened. How many more have to leave until no one knows how to run the water plant or the trash trucks? Wait! That already happened, as well.
Well, at least we have those highly paid communication folks to take those smiling photos. (Remember, their top PR person, Monica McDaniels, makes the Top 10 list of highly compensated City employees, earning a base salary of $161,200.)
You know Rome is burning when the architects of the current council are being tossed out.
But it might be amusing to find out all those little secrets the Crow/Russell group knows about our squad prior to voting for or against them this November.
Just remember: Odessa certainly had problems prior to the squad. But these folks have broken Odessa and now want you to pat them on the back for dumping the ones who helped them land on the City Council in the first place.
We’ll take a pass on that. We agree the Crows and Russell are not good for the community. In fact, we’ll be reporting more in the coming weeks on just how broken they left the County GOP. But that’s a story for another day.
We’ll keep you posted as the drama plays out.
