SMITH
by JONATHAN YORK
Hays County Commissioner Mark Jones has decided to remove longtime Justice of the Peace Beth Smith from the board that oversees the Kyle Fire Department.
Firefighters are vocally opposing the decision.
Several reasons have been suggested for the change. For one, Jones wanted to do something for the Hometown Kyle subdivision, where there was a great deal of anger over the redistricting plan that he had proposed earlier this year.
Jones, the Pct. 2 commissioner, used to represent Hometown Kyle. Now, with the districts redrawn, Pct. 4 Commissioner Ray Whisenant Jr. did. Jones offered Whisenant the chance to appoint a member from Hometown Kyle to the board of the Hays County Emergency Services District No. 5, which raises taxes and oversees budgets for the Kyle Fire Department.
This was only fair; the board was partly on his turf. What Whisenant didn’t know is that Beth Smith would be forced out to make room for this appointment. Smith had opposed Jones on redistricting and on other matters. She also had been on this board for 27 years.
The role of an elected official
“With every appointment I make I have to be able to feel comfortable,” Jones said in an interview at the newspaper office. “I have to be confident with every appointment. If I have the least bit of doubt then I’m going to go in a different direction.”
In Smith’s case, he was going in a different direction for reasons that seem mysterious to others.
“None of them are elected officials, except Judge Smith,” Jones said. “It’s not against her. It’s not her. It’s more the part about being an elected official.” In other words, someone who is concerned with re-election should not have a hand in the nonpolitical operations of the fire department.
Smith was a little confused. “I see what he’s saying, but, I mean, I’m a judge,” she said. “I make decisions every day. None of them are biased.”
And there were other problems with Jones’s argument, she said. One was that Jones himself was an elected politician sitting on a taxing authority, the Hays County Commissioners Court. If Smith was too biased to decide how taxes should be spent, then what made Jones any different? Also, the emergency services district in Wimberley had a justice of the peace serving on its board too.
“Most folks believe this is a political or a personal move, not based on the argument you provide about not wanting an elected official to serve on the ESD,” board member Mike Fulton told Jones in an email. “I am still on the fence about that. Your argument does not make sense to me, but I find it hard to accept the idea that you are either that vindictive or partisan, so I am still unsure of exactly what your motivation is.”
And in an email that was copied to all members of the Kyle Fire Department, the deputy chief told Jones: “The only thing I can do is ask that if this is not your idea, [if] you’re being advised to do this by someone, please ask yourself, why? ... Why act in direct contradiction/opposition to those that work with this board and those that are served by this board?”
A chance to step down
For her part, Smith said she didn’t understand why Jones didn’t want her to resign six months ago. Back then the only board member who was a volunteer firefighter had just resigned, and Jones wanted to fill the seat with someone who was not a volunteer. Smith said she was horrified. The board could not do its work, she believed, without the perspective of a volunteer.
She offered to resign, she said, so that Jones could give her seat to a volunteer firefighter. Instead, “Mark talked me out of stepping down.”
So what happened over those six months?
There were a few plausible reasons for the commissioner’s sudden change. Some observers said that he wanted to get rid of Smith because she stood against him on county redistricting. (Jones denies this claim.) Or because he wanted to put a Republican on the board. (Jones insists that his appointments, like the board’s work, are nonpartisan.)
But Chief Glenn Whitaker of the Kyle Fire Department gave this explanation: Jones was making a move in order to get rid of opposition and look better in Hometown Kyle.
“I’m not very political. I sit on the fence and vote for whoever I think would do the best job,” Whitaker said. “It makes me really hurt when I see someone doing something for political reasons and not logical reasons.”
First public words
Most of the discussion of Smith’s reappointment has happened in closed circles: politicians, firefighters, county officials and neighborhood gossips. The topic has never come up in a public meeting. And until Tuesday night no one had made a public statement about it.
The person making that statement was Whisenant. He invited his constituents to a forum at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Old Kyle City Hall. He will be there to discuss the pending appointment – or reappointment.
With his emailed invitation, he enclosed a message that he sent both to Smith and Jones.
“When Commissioner Jones offered that I would have an opportunity to appoint a Board Member to the ESD from the Precinct 4 area in the District, I did not know that it would require a change in that Board,” he wrote, addressing Smith. “I have asked for his suggestions and will equally consider your request.”
Whisenant opposed the redistricting plan that put Hometown Kyle in his jurisdiction. If the neighbors in that subdivision want a voice on the emergency services board, he might have a hard time ignoring them.
On the other hand, at least one neighborhood activist in Hometown Kyle has come out for keeping Smith on the board.
“So [Jones harmed] us in the redistricting deal (sacrificing HTK to protect the unincorporated area and finish a road) and now he’s trying to cozy back up to us by offering Judge Smith’s board position to somebody in our hood,” Joel Kirkby wrote in an email to his neighbors. “This is stupid and I don’t want it in my front or backyard. He needs to leave Judge Smith alone.”
Smith is excited at the possibilities. She might be able to stay on the board, which she says is her favorite. Over the 27 years since J.F. “Boots” Montague appointed her, she has given up seats on many other boards to have the time for this one.
“This is just like my second family,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
