Southeast Bexar County Community Awareness: ESD#6 looked to take on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression?
What is Freedom of Speech?
Freedom of Speech is protected by the 1st Amendment to the constitution. This gives the various medias to report both opinion and facts about our government, entertainers, etc. That which makes blogs, such as hubpages, cnn, fox and all the other social media pages on today's internet able to exist.
Any public figure is susceptible to having their information made public. Political figures being on the top of the list.
Does the community and the media have the right to inform others of what goes on in ESD6 community?
What is Freedom of Expression?
Freedom of Expression is covered in Article 19, which states that everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference, these rights include freedom to seek, receive, and import information and ideas of all kinds--regardless of frontiers; either orally, in writing or in print- art or any other media of choice.
According to a staff member at the Bexar County elections office, political candidate or office holders open themselves to opinion unless there is proof without a shadow of a doubt that comments are false; there is no way they get involved in a freedom of speech or slander complaints, something they get called about every election.
Basically, if you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
This List Goes On......
If Ms. Mendelsohn and her board felt threatened by the 1st Amendment, that would only add credence to the fact that what they have done with the tax payers money needs to be made a public issue. This is America, where we are not suppose to have taxation without misrepresentation.
In a two minute search, I came across several entities on line that have been keeping track of the goings on of the ESD#6.
- Kens5
- Ksat12
- Express News
- Woai
- Fire Law Blog
- ESD2 website
- Safe-D website
- High Beam Research
- State and County websites
- Attorney General's website
- Topix
- Newser
- You tube
and the list goes on and on.
The ESD#6 and their lack of transparency was having issues with their ESD#6 website, which failed to load. The Bexar County website, which had links to ESD's, no longer had them. It has since been repaired, but they continue to lack transparency and omit items on they don't want the community to know.
Agenda: a Red-Herring?
The ESD#6 is held a meeting to decide what if any action to take against their community members and others decimating information which they believe will be hurtful to their cause. They were also meeting to decide about looking for other sources for more money.
If passed, the ESD#6 could have gone after community members who spoke against the illegal activities as well as activities that hurt the taxpaying community. All this was a red-herring to take the attention away from the fact that they were digging for more ways to gain more money and possibly put the taxpayers in the community in more debt and to scare their community members and keep them from saying anything about the ESD#6.
The community had and will continue to have a right to know what goes on in their community and with lack of transparency, the media is where they have looked.
If Ms. Mendelsohn and her board decided to vote to go after the community members, who would be next, local newspaper, news media, myself and other bloggers? Where would it end and who would pay for the legal fees?
It is a known fact that a large portion of funds for fire safety in the community went to their attorney, Louis Rosenberg, leaving little money to fund fire safety. How much more were they willing to spend to achieve a personal goal or vendetta?
Apparently, not very far as the agenda item went nowhere. Scare tactic did not work.
