I read the letter to the Odessa American by Kirk Edwards on his assessment of spending by our city council. A few of his comments, really did not match up with what I remembered. This is most likely because we rarely see Mr Edwards at a city council meeting or a county commissioners court meeting. I am sure that he is relying on that super reliable source of information, Facebook.
Let’s recap… Mr. Edwards brought up the fact that Mayor Joven and some current council members criticized former council members and city management for frivolous expenses such as the Christmas Trees that were purchased for their friends at the downtown Marriott. Mr. Edwards conveniently remembers the cost of those trees being about $50,000. I remember them being closer to $80,000 each (That would be $160,000, Mr. Edwards). I also remember the bigger issues being that fact that the exact same trees could have been purchased on Amazon for about $900 each, and that the trees were later found behind a dumpster at the Time Machine. It was highlighted as yet another example municipal waste. It was never revealed who the trees were purchased from, but I am sure that they were possibly purchased from a “friend” of the swamp that ran our city for decades.
Mr. Edwards also wanted to compare and contrast the wasteful expense for those Christmas trees with the recent expenses that council had for hiring our new city manager. As usual, Kirk left out a few facts. First, the original contract set out a maximum expense of just over $300,000. However, in the end, the city only spent $225,000. Second, the $225,000 covered the search for the city manager, in addition to hours and hours of surveying and training for existing city employees for a multitude of topics. The cost to hire Mr. Beckmeyer was a fraction of that $225,000 price tag. He also failed to point out that the current council has eliminated hundreds of thousands of dollars in other salaries from bloated budgets in almost every department. Did he forget that Mr. Marrero had a $284,000 annual salary plus a $10,000 car allowance?
If Mr. Edwards occasionally attended a city council meeting, he would also know that our new City Manager, John Beckmeyer, as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas (slightly larger than our fair city), led thousands of RPT volunteers. In addition, he had to answer directly to the State Republican Executive Committee (62 board members) for every decision that he made. Kirk and many others want to tout that Mr. Beckmeyer has no experience running a city. Have they stopped to consider that he has years of experience putting the right leaders in the right positions to run every department? In addition, we have never had a city manager that had any experience dealing with state officials and legislators the way that Beckmeyer has. He has spent decades building relationships with the officials that pass state laws and control state funding to cities such as ours. He has also spent many years working to hire leaders (legislators) to run much larger departments than our city departments. If anything, it is my opinion that Mr. Beckmeyer might just be over qualified for our position of city manager. We are blessed to have Mr. Beckmeyer and his leadership in our city.
Wake up Odessa and realize that the people sending in these letters to the OA are keyboard warriors. Just because Mr. Edwards bought his name onto a school building does not make him an expert. Looks to me like he is just upset that all his “Good Old Boys” have been relieved of their places in city policy and privilege, and he doesn’t like it. The swamp is getting drained.
Please get involved! Come to a city council meeting! Come to a County Commissioners meeting! Quick relying on Facebook for your information! Come find out the truth and the facts for yourself!
PS… Mr. Edwards, while $50,000 might not be much to you…. It is a whole lot of money to someone like me. By the way… that Gumby looking sculpture that your buddies paid for in front of the Police Training center actually cost me and my fellow tax payers about $85,000, and unlike you, I don’t think it is worth anything. I would rather have seen that money spent on our police, fire, roads, water, sewer, etc.
Dawn Tucker
ECRP Precinct Chair
