The Ennis Daily News (Ennis, Tex.), Ed. 1 Friday, February 15, 2013 Page: 4 of 10
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Opinion
Page 4
Friday, February 15,2013
Ennis Daily News
Weeks later,
lew leads
in slaying
The murder of Kaufman County
prosecutor Mark Hasse has produced
few leads, it would seem.
Silence is deafening in a situation
like the slaying of an officer of the
court. We are not alone in our suspi-
cions that, in the two weeks since the
man’s cold-blooded murder on the
street near his courthouse office, lit-
tle headway has been made.
By all accounts that have come out
in the wake of the chilling day-time
hit against Hasse, he
seems to have been
one of those men
criminals take seri-
ously He was serious
about crime and jus-
tice. For Hasse, it was
not just a job. We’re
sure everyone investigating this case
is driven forward with that much
more purpose in knowing Hasse’s
legacy demands that kind of care
and determination.
Hasse’s history of prosecuting
criminals goes way back, so there’s a
lot of ground to cover in terms of
finding the real motivation behind
his murder and we understand that
creates a bevy of problems for inves-
tigators. Still, the sum total of the
story at this point ends with his slay-
ing and the memorial services that
tried to do justice to a man who felt
justice was worth fighting for.
It needs to go further. And not just
for the reading public, but for the
man whose life was so senselessly
ended on the street in Kaufman two
weeks ago.
Justice cannot be slow or hindered
by the schedules of a nine-to-five en-
vironment in such cases. It must
come relentlessly and come ready for
anything.
Our
Point of
View
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The opinions expressed by our readers may not neces-
sarily reflect the position of the Ennis Daily News.
© Contents copyright 2013 and cannot be reproduced
without the written permission of the publisher.
Tre Bischof ■ Publisher Michelle Crouch ■ Advertising Manager
Nick Todaro ■ Editor Teresa Watson ■ Office Manager
Femev Parra - Production Manager
Melissa Honza - Composition Manager
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ASIDE FROM WHERE
WE ARE, WHAT'D YOU
THINK OF THE STATE OF
THE UNION ADDRESS?
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Evening meetings needed
Some things just don’t pass
the smell test.
The Ellis County Commis-
sioners Court’s proposal this
week to do away with evening
meetings was met on
Monday with consid-
erable and under-
standable resistance.
Many of the court’s
frequent critics were
on hand, flinging in-
vective and accusa-
tions at
commissioners like
molotovs at a riot. For
the first time in a long
time, I agree with the
critics.
Worries about se-
curity are entirely
valid, especially in the light of
the tragic shooting death of
Kaufman County Assistant Dis-
trict Attorney Mark Hasse. With
the exception of sheriffs offi-
cials making presentations at
court meetings, there’s usually
only one law enforcement officer
present to offer any sort of secu-
rity Given some of the more con-
tentious court meetings I’ve
covered in the time I’ve been
here, I’m surprised there hasn’t
been an effort to beef up security
before now. Bringing in another
law enforcement officer to offer
additional security for one night
a month seems like an easy, com-
mon sense solution to the issue.
Doing away with evening meet-
ings altogether seems like
overkill.
Oddly enough, it didn’t take
long for the commissioners to
pivot away from security con-
cerns to fiscal ones. It was
pointed out that it possibly costs
the papers that we had probably
just bought our last gas-powered
car. We usually keep a car six or
seven years, so what
will be in the dealer
showrooms in 2020?
Even now, I see
more and more hy-
brid and electric cars
on the road, cars that
were rare only five
years ago. The rea-
son I didn’t buy one
this time is that
they’re still a little
pricey for the way I
drive, and in six or
seven years, who
knows how much the
technology will have improved?
I don’t make enough money to
have the high eco-principles of
wealthy movie stars and million-
aire plastic surgeons. But by
2020, the hybrids and electrics
will probably be the same price
as gas-powered cars.
Did you catch that? “Gas-pow-
ered cars.” Ten years ago, that
would have been a silly way to
describe an automobile. It would
be like saying, “I have to buy
some electric light bulbs,” or,
“I’m going to buy a color TV,” as
if there were some other kind.
What other kind of car has there
been for most of your life but
gas-powered? Ten years from
now, we may not say “electric
car,” either. All vehicles may be
electric.
the county between $2,600 to
$3,000 a year to hold evening
meetings, and few people rou-
tinely take advantage of the op-
portunity to come to meetings.
Funny; I didn’t
know we put a price
on participation in
democracy.
It seems to me that
any governmental
body that valued the
public’s input would
want to increase their
ability to give that
input; not take it
away. The logical
choice would seem to
be to increase secu-
rity at the courthouse
during evening meet-
ings, while accepting the expen-
diture as money well spent on
the cause of participatory gov-
ernment.
That the court would jump im-
mediately to ending evening
meetings, as opposed to finding
space in the budget to increase
security, implies possible ulte-
rior motives, don’t you think?
I’ve seen court meetings first
hand where local citizens have
come out to address issues im-
portant to them. The evening
meetings give citizens a chance
to participate. Most people in
this county work day jobs; I’d
wager most employers require
more notice than the Friday be-
fore that a worker needs to miss
that Monday afternoon to go take
part in politics. Doing away with
evening meetings would effec-
tively silence a wide swath of
Ellis County citizens.
That even one of the court’s
bi-monthly meetings takes place
ies in these cars and reduce the
time needed to charge them.
How long before there will be an
outlet at your park-
ing spot at work that
you can plug into?
How long before
someone starts sell-
ing a car that
recharges from the
sun as it sits in the
parking lot? Google
is supposed to be
working on a driver-
less car as we speak.
Not only will it get
you where you want
to go by GPS, but
when the kids ask,
“Are we there yet?” you can tell
them to Google it. They won’t
like Google’s answer any better
than yours.
I assume that Apple is work-
ing on an iCar at this very mo-
ment. It will fit in your pocket,
and instead of driving you to
work, it will bring your job to
wherever you are. Oh, I forgot,
we can already do that.
A lot of people pooh-pooh the
electric car. They say it doesn’t
go far enough, it doesn’t go fast
enough, there are no “electric
stations” where it can be easily
“refueled.” They usually say this
while they are sitting in bumper-
to-bumper traffic going nowhere
at 2 mph. And, sure, there are
plenty of times when a vehicle
that needs to be recharged won’t
in the mornings hurts access for
Ellis County citizens. I’ve per-
sonally seen several issues that
draw large crowds at a 6 p.m.
evening get voted on during the
next 10 a.m. meeting, when
many of the most vociferous
critics from the last meeting
were absent. In effect, it makes it
so the court can vote on contro-
versial issues with little input
from the public.
To be clear, the court was not
unanimous on this issue. The
newest commissioner, Precinct
3’s Paul Perry, spoke out ar-
dently against the elimination of
evening meetings. Perry de-
feated former commissioner
Heath Sims about a year after
Sims, as well as Commissioner
Bill Dodson and Judge Carol
Bush, received votes of no confi-
dence from the Ellis County
GOP. He’s positioned himself as
an advocate for the people on the
court, and in this first notable
move I can’t help but support
him.
There are ways to bolster se-
curity at Commissioner’s Court
meetings that don’t involve
scrapping evening meetings or
employing, as was suggested by
several at Monday’s meeting,
mobs of armed civilians. If it
costs money, so be it. Giving citi-
zens a voice in government de-
serves taxpayer funding. Elected
officials who disagree should be
warned; a citizenry denied their
voice at the court podium will
certainly find it again at the bal-
lot box.
Phil is a staff writer for The
Ennis Daily News. He can be reached
at phiKJennisdailynews.com.
-far future
be the right choice. But for run-
ning errands and average com-
mutes, it makes a lot of sense.
Eight years ago, my wife
bought a V-8 truck and told the
dealer that she needed one with
a bed big enough to carry
Sheetrock because we were ren-
ovating the house. As it turns
out, we have never, ever used the
truck to move Sheetrock. It was
way too much truck for what we
needed to do. Besides, the sup-
plier would have delivered the
Sheetrock to us for a few thou-
sand times less than what the
truck cost.
Likewise, for the few times
when an electric car doesn’t fit
the bill, I’m sure the owners
could figure out a way around it:
Rent or borrow a gas-powered ve-
hicle. After all, Americans move
from city to city all the time, but
no one says, “Hey, we should buy
a moving van just in case we
move again.”
I wonder what we’ll miss most
about gas-powered cars — the
early morning smog? The ever-
rising price of gas? Those
friendly self-serve pumps at the
convenience stores? Standing in
line behind someone making 57
different and extremely compli-
cated bets on tonight’s numbers?
The $1 sodas that cost $2.50? The
romance of spending $65 for one
fill-up? Can an electric car ever
replace all that?
Contact Jim Mullen at Jim-
MullenBooks. com.
The car of the not-so
We got a new car a month ago, Every year, automakers inl-
and it hit me as we were signing prove the capacity of the batter-
Jim Mullen
The Village Idiot
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Todaro, Nick. The Ennis Daily News (Ennis, Tex.), Ed. 1 Friday, February 15, 2013, newspaper, February 15, 2013; Ennis, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth772289/m1/4/?q=12th%20Armored%20Memorial%20Museum: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ennis Public Library.