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July 18, 2008

Payne Springs Council discusses voter fraud

By Art Lawler Cedar Creek Pilot

PAYNE SPRINGS — Newly elected Mayor J.T. Nobles is doing his best to bring order to what has been some of the lake area’s most contentious city council meetings.

Noble’s insistence on everyone following Roberts Rules of Order has led to more orderly meetings in recent weeks, but old feuds die hard in Payne Springs.

“We’re still arguing,” he admitted after Tuesday night’s meeting. “But it’s orderly arguing now.”

Another one of those eye-popping Payne Springs moments presented itself when the council was asked to vote on whether people who had voted in the recent liquor election, who weren’t citizens, should have their names turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

The council then voted 3-2 not to do it.

While it might seem like a no-brainer, nothing is ever quite as it appears on the surface at these meetings.

One council member left before he could be questioned about his vote afterward, and another answered “no comment” when asked, while the third and deciding voter explained the group’s reasoning.

Councilmember Vic Brazzell said that although more than 20 names were flagged for possible boundary violations, the county registrar had approved those registrations prior to the election.

In the past, according to Noble, names approved by the city, have been accepted routinely by the county.

He showed a reporter a list of recent registrations sent to him by the county for verification. The list had more than a dozen names on it. Noble, looking at it Tuesday night said it looked to him like only three of those people were actually Payne Springs residents.

Some voters don’t realize they don’t live in the City of Payne Springs, either, Noble said.

At least one person, whose registration address turned out to be a field without a house on it, was accused of being disingenuous by citizen Karen Juica during her talk to the council about voter fraud.

To Councilman Brazzell’s way of thinking, the county is the final authority on this.

If the county approves those registrations for voting, it’s then pretty hard, in his view, to try to punish the voters later for doing it.

That didn’t set well with some in the audience, though, who pointed out the liquor initiative was voted down by just 16 votes.

Much of the problem is Payne Springs’ spiderweb-like city map, which makes it difficult to discern who’s in the city limits and who’s out. Even county and city officials sometimes have to scratch their heads trying to figure it out.

But Noble, with the help of Juica, took a driving survey to determine which citizens were legit and which ones were close to the city limits but not in them.

Noble said the county has reviewed the city’s findings and is in agreement with them for now.

He insists the boundary confusion has been corrected and will remain that way for future elections.

Representatives of Blackbrush, the San Antonio oil company which wants to drill for oil underneath Cedar Creek Lake, were not able to make this meeting and a new date has been set for the company to speak to the council in August.

In other action at Tuesday night’s regularly schedule meeting the Payne Spring city council voted:

• 4-1 against allowing off-duty police officers to use police vehicles while performing security inside the city;

• unanimously to go to a bi-yearly audit instead of the present annual audit.

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