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Meet Your County Commissioners Glory Hopkins, Fort Bend County District Clerk August 24, 2006
The Commissioners hope you don’t find out that the recommendations include optical imaging of all District Court records. The imaged records, just like the imaged records of the County Clerk, will become available for bulk sale and will also end up on the Internet.
I am the only “volunteer” that opposes the recommendation to image, sell in bulk and publish District Court records on the Internet. District Judges, the County Attorney, and the District Attorney put their stamp of approval on the recommendations. The District Judges have the power to stop the plan, but so far, they are going along with the Commissioners.
Other committee members seemed unconcerned if commercial vendors put your personal information, such as social security numbers, bank account numbers, legal signatures, addresses, phone numbers, or driver license numbers on the Internet or sell them to persons in India, China, the Bahamas, Iran or Russia. And, they may even turn the control of your information over to a bunch of other county commissioners like Mike Cantrell and the CUC.
In January 2006, the Federal Trade Commission listed Sugar Land as NUMBER 8 in the nation for Identity Theft-Related Consumer Complaints. If our identities are stolen, perhaps the persons responsible will be our elected officials. Do you feel betrayed?
The Commissioners have no statutory or Constitutional authority to take over any of the District Clerk’s duties. They are strictly limited to budgetary authority, but they have become meddling and controlling.
The Commissioners should not have created a committee of “volunteers” in order to avoid the open meetings requirements. It may have been legal to exclude you and the press, but it was unethical and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Commissioners should stop the practice of hiding behind committees, facilitators, “volunteers”, Judges, the CUC, and the skirts of women-particularly those of the County Clerk.
The Commissioners need to come out from hiding, so we can find out if they can think. I would like to hear them string two sentences together without being sarcastic, insulting, or making a silly attempt at humor. And, are they capable of demonstrating some concern for County employees and the public?
The Commissioners that I know don’t qualify for a salary increase; they have not earned it. Their salaries should be cut by at least half since they are half as informed and educated as any group since 1987. There are five empty pairs of shoes that need filling, and there are jobs somewhere in our Texas statutes for anyone willing to find them and do the work.
Our Commissioners may want to be careful about how much money they award themselves and think about McLennan County Commissioner Wendall Crunk’s joking remark when he said: “As someone once told me, if we get our salaries up too high, someone with the qualifications for this job might actually want to run.”
Think about it.
Glory Hopkins, District Clerk August 24, 2006 Pages: 1 2 3 Previous Page |
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