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M-C Council establishes new fire department, social media policy
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<li><span>Landon Fisher | Herald-Banner Staff</span></li>
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<time datetime="2018-04-13T08:30:00-05:00" class="gmail-asset-date gmail-text-muted">Apr 13, 2018</time></li>
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<p>The McLendon-Chisholm City Council
met Tuesday night for its first April regular session, most notably
acting to formally establish a McLendon-Chisholm Fire Rescue Department,
and to name Jim Simmons as the city’s new Fire Marshal.</p><p>Mayor
Robert Steinhagen introduced the topic by giving a brief recount of the
progression of contracts between the city and the McLendon-Chisholm
Volunteer Fire Department over the last several years, leading up to the
late 2017 dispute between the city and MCVFD over a contract for fire
services to the city.</p><p>Steinhagen also referenced the last several
months of negotiations between the city and MCVFD, stating that the
MCVFD’s negotiators “engaged in shell game tactics,” never intending to
reach an equitable agreement for the city’s fire protection, something
that those negotiators, John Crumpley and Mark Kipphut, have vehemently
denied.</p>
<div id="gmail-tncms-region-article_instory_top" class="gmail-tncms-region gmail-hidden-print"></div><p>Simmons
is a veteran of several area fire departments, including experience
with his “family business,” the North Texas Fire Academy.</p><p>“I’ve
had numerous discussions with Mr. Simmons,” said place 2 Councilman
Scott Turnbull, “and he’s been very forthcoming about what we can and
can not do. He has experience setting up departments, and we’ll be using
him to help set up our municipal department here.”</p><p>“The
(Emergency Services) committee is still deciding what to do,” said
Steinhagen. “While fees were increasing exponentially over the last
several years, no studies have been done as to why. It’s unfortunate
that there’s so much misinformation.</p><p>It’s sickening that people are playing politics with our public safety.”</p><p>The
mayor’s comments come in response to the last several months of vocal
opposition from a number of community members who insist that the
citizens of McLendon-Chisholm do not want the current fire services to
change, and that the city-conducted survey which seemed to convey the
opposite was intentionally unclear in its wording so as to direct
results.</p><p>Steinhagen’s opponent in he upcoming May election, Keith
Short of the Royse City Police Department, spoke to the council at the
start of the meeting saying “Every one of you should be ashamed to be on
that side (of the dais), because you’ve shown utter disrespect to us as
citizens of this community, from the eye rolls to the smirks to the way
you bait people into saying things, unintentional or not.”</p><p>“You
give partial information that looks good, but doesn’t give the whole
story, and it’s disgusting,” Short added. “And then you wonder why
people are so upset with you on social media.”</p><p>The city also
introduced a new “social media policy,” explained by Councilwoman Balkum
(place 4) to include specifications that comments and posts on the city
Facebook page are considered public records and may be treated as such,
in accordance with the Texas Open Information Act.</p><p>The new policy
also includes provisions that allow for the page’s administrators to
police content, removing comments and potentially blocking users who
violate the policy.</p>
<div id="gmail-tncms-region-article_instory_middle" class="gmail-tncms-region gmail-hidden-print"></div><p>“Content
which may be removed is profane language or content, or discourteous
communication including personal attacks on an individual’s character or
appearance,” Balkum read from the policy, which also prohibits language
denigrating others on the basis of any legally protected classes.</p><p>Many
McLendon-Chisholm citizens have voiced their concern that this amounts
to an effective limitation on their freedom to criticize elected
officials on a publicly-run Facebook page, with no real structure for
the adjudication of any violations of the policy.</p><p>The policy also
prohibits commenters on the city page from promoting specific political
candidates, which seems incongruous with a post on the city Facebook
page, dated April 9, linking to Steinhagen’s “State of the City” address
two weeks ago, which McLendon-Chisholm resident and vocal opponent of
the mayor and council, Rob Quinn, described as a “glorified campaign
speech.”</p><p>Related to the new social media policy, the council voted
to allocate $995 for record keeping of the city’s social media
platforms, in accordance with state guidelines.</p><p>Steinhagen and the
council remain the subject of an active investigation by the Rockwall
County Sheriff’s Department related to allegations of violating the
Texas Open Meetings Act, related to the fire services dispute and other
actions in the last year.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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