While I was hesitant to post a note about this, I have received many emails and messages today about being the only councilmember that the mayor didn’t appoint as chair or vice chair of a standing council committee.  I am writing to say this:

Nobody cares.

Here’s what I mean:  Despite the emails and messages I’ve gotten (which I appreciate), the fact is, 99% of my district couldn’t care less who the council committee chairs are.  They care about how the city’s going to handle this budget crisis, what we’re doing to lower crime, how we’ll fix code and repair our streets.  They worry about cuts to our libraries and parks and senior services.  The very last thing they are concerned about is council committee assignments, and their priorities are my priorities. To that end, I’m going to keep focusing on the issues that matter.

I’m proud to have been reappointed chair of the Ad Hoc Judiciary Committee.  Since being appointed last year, our committee has examined our court system from top to bottom for the first time in more than twenty years.  Rather than serving as a rubber stamp to judicial appointments (as the committee had in the past), we took this as an opportunity to closely examine the systemic problems that plague our courts, with each committee member touring our courts and visiting with the various departments that make up our court system.  The committee has met regularly with judges, court administrators, police officers, and prosecutors to better understand why our courts are losing money.  We’ve worked diligently to learn about our judiciary, its faults and inefficiencies, and our efforts have paid off:  Over the last ten months, we’ve initiated and completed a thorough efficiency study that will save our city millions of taxpayer dollars and fix a broken system. Those are the types of results that Dallas residents care about, and that’s what I’m going to stay focused on.