(This is an article that was written for the Burleson Star, I said you probably won't see it due to its length, but the new publisher put the entire letter in his Sunday addition! It is well over the 300 word limit, but then again so was Keith Kelly's letter. Seems he USED to get more space than anyone else in the STAR. )
I welcomed Mr. Kelly’s letter to the editor in the Sunday (6/12) Burleson Star for two reasons. First, it apparently signaled the end to the Burleson Star’s requirement that letter must be 300 words or less and second, his comments completely contradicted those of the Chamber Board President when he said the use of the postage permit was not political, it was just a “perk” of being a chamber member.
It is America and we have freedom of association and the right to campaign and promote our causes. The problem is we should have to follow the law to do it. The Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit 501(c)6 organization. They can lobby for and promote their ideas to further business. What they cannot do is direct that effort into a campaign for a specific person.
Mr. Kelly is a member of the Chamber board and therefore was involved and, in my opinion based on what I know of Mr. Kelly, he was probably the instigator of the use of the permit to mail campaign literature. He and the two members are also part of the Texas Patriot Tea Party in Burleson where Mr. Kelly also serves as a board member. The Patriot Tea Party has made it no secret that they plan to take over all the elected yet non-partisan boards in Burleson, if not Johnson County. Mr. Kelly counts himself as a political movers and shaker in campaigning. At least that is what his bio on the Tea Party website says.
While Mr. Kelly didn’t mention the Chamber fiasco in his letter he did describe in detail his views on the current City Council and his perception that they are a “tax and spend” bunch of liberals. He’s entitled to his opinion. However, I would like to contrast his statements that elections have consequences with the subject that he uses as the basis for his complaint about the city leadership.
The city does have debt but, in part, due to city bond elections that were brought before the citizens of Burleson and passed. That is the consequence of people having a say about what they want to see happen in their city. Apparently, Mr. Kelly doesn’t like it when citizen have their say as to what they want in their city and even school district if it doesn’t agree with his agenda. You may remember Mr. Kelly as the chief prosecutor of the Burleson ISD administration and board during the last TRE election in October.
Mr. Kelly makes much ado about how taxes and spending are ruining our nation and I would agree with him, on some points, but I think that those things constitutional required on the federal and state level should be funded by the citizenry. The Tea Party Movement would have you believe that any tax is un-American and deserved to be beat back as we have seen for the last nearly six months in Austin. I have found their stance to be down-right fanatical on public education. However, for someone that barks a good talk, Mr. Kelly seems to change his opinion about taxing whenever it suits him.
Consider that Mr. Kelly is also an appointed Commissioner on the Johnson County Emergency Service District board, commonly referred to as the fire board. In February 2010, he and his fellow Commissioners decided that they wanted to double the fire tax for country residents and called an election for May 2010. Not only did he apparently feel that doubling the tax was ok, he also felt that it was ok to allow publications on the ESD website promoting the passage of the doubled tax. He and the rest of the ESD board also allowed ESD broadcast equipment to be used to promote the call for all firefighters to pick up signs for distribution advocating passage of the tax measure. Mr. Kelly doesn’t let ethics rules get in his way either; so much for the “rule of law”.
Less than three months after the ESD tax passed, Mr. Kelly became a board member for the newly formed Texas Patriot Tea Party. It was at this point that he became a “no-tax” advocate. After being fed some disappointedly bad information, he began an assault on the tax increase proposed by the BISD. He was joined by a few of his pals, each with their own agenda, and proclaimed that the school district was lying about their deficit and were guilty of fraud. (We will know soon if that deficit was real) As Mr. Kelly stated in his letter, the TRE was defeated by 8 votes, but he couldn’t leave it there; he wanted someone fired. This time he appeared before the BISD board and advocated a tax increase suggesting that if the superintendent was fired, he might support it. He then admitted to supporting the 2006 BISD bond program as a “friend of the district”. So, is he a “no tax” patriot or what? How many times do you flip flop on your beliefs before you are found to be lacking in any?
It is a sad day when a previously great organization that brought good press to the City of Burleson is reduced to a partisan, political operation. Those who have long stood proud to be a part of the Chamber and its true mission were displaced by those with a political agenda that will not serve all businesses of Burleson but instead will only be a mouthpiece for the Tea Party.
