Sunny Side /South Park Super Neighborhood

Charles X White to Robert Litke II - 10/19/02

Ethics

Memorandum
October 19, 2002

To: Lt. T. Hartnett, OIC – City of Houston
Charles X White, President SSSPSN
Subject: References with Complaint

Lt. Hartnett, I hope this correspondence answers your questions satisfactorily. In my original complaint I mentioned that I am not totally familiar with the OIG process, we appreciate your patience. I am responding to the best of my understanding. We are requesting a copy of whatever material you have collected up to this point as well as the answers to the following questions:
1. What policy did Mr. Litke use to make his decision?
2. Who from the community and the city did he meet with to make his decision?
3. What did the involved individuals give him in writing? What was Mr. Litke’s validation process?
4. What information did Mr. Litke give Mayor Brown?
5. What was Mayor Brown’s response?
6. Has Mr. Litke handled any other super neighborhood or civic club in this manner?
7. Why hasn’t he responded to our request to meet with him on this subject?
8. Why has it taken so long for Mr. Litke to produce the rationale for his decision?
9. Why didn’t he send us a copy of what he sent to other civic clubs?
10. When did he make his decision to create another super neighborhood within our existing boundaries? When did he communicate his decision to the community and to whom?
By producing such documentation he could save the community and the city much confusion and division. To us this is a simple matter blown out of context due to the unexplained actions of Mr. Robert Litke. We want to restore order and start the process of mending the fences brought about by Mr. Like’s actions. We are seeking simple common courtesy of responding to our questions. Mr. Litke’s none response to our requests is insulting and unprofessional behavior for a department head.
City Reference Material
q May 1999 – Lee P. Brown – Guidelines for Organizing Super Neighborhoods and Forming Super Neighborhood Councils - This document is presented, as a suggestion to super neighborhood groups the word shall is not contained. Nothing in this document authorizes the planning department to override the SSSPSN council or by-laws.
q Super Neighborhood Council Best Practices Application – (f) this document states and suggests that councils should be able to manage difficult problems and will be rewarded for such skill.
q Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood’s by-laws gives no authority to the planning department to make decisions on behalf of our organization.
q We have a series of memo’s and training material related to our procedural development process.

Context of the Complaint:
In our by-laws section V - Officers, 5.1 the president shall preside over all general and executive committee meetings. The president shall have the authority to conduct meetings and to maintain order. The president shall appoint all committee chairs.
?˜ As president I appointed Pastor Marvin Delaney as committee chair parliamentarian because of his knowledge of Robert's Rule of Order and his integrity. He has served as parliamentarian for the past three years. He conducts our meetings according to Robert's Rule of Order. This entire process is part of our development in procedural process.
According to the National Association of Parliamentarians: Deliberative Assemblies
?˜ A deliberative assembly is defined as -- the kind of gathering to which parliamentary law is generally understood to apply--has the following distinguishing characteristics:
· It is an independent or autonomous group of people meeting to determine, in full and free discussion, courses of action to be taken in the name of the entire group.
This definition includes the Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood that includes 71, 72, & 76. Our election held on May 20, 2002 with 39 voting members out of 54. My slate was elected with me as president. In an open public forum conducted by a precinct judge. The election results were 25 votes for me and 14 votes for the other candidate. Representatives from 71, 72, & 76 participated. The results have never been officially contested. Parties of both groups counted the votes and signed the election results verifying that the counting of the votes was fair. Mr. Litke has a copy of the official results in the form of a report from Mrs. Willie Belle Boone. As a deliberative assembly the Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood exercises its rights represent its members – by its members not Mr. Litke and his allies. Mr. Litke ignored and violated our right to due process by guiding the formation of a second super neighborhood group within our membership and within our boundaries – without any notification to the existing executive board - body. No policy authorizes him to do that.

Developmental procedural process reference
There was one occasion that an infraction of our by-laws by our super neighborhood occurred. It was brought to our attention by the planning department verbally. We acknowledged the oversight gave the planning department a copy of our corrective action as a courtesy – they accepted in writing our corrective action as part of our protocol, We corrected the oversight and moved on with the business strengthening of our community. That process established a course of action for future situations with anyone or agency. It contained a communication procedural protocol between the established SSSPSN and the city planning department as a guide. Why did Mr. Litke choose to deviate from an established protocol in a later but similar instance?
According to our understanding since our by-laws contains no provisions for the city-planning department to make decision for our super neighborhood Mr. Litke's actions are unauthorized. Also Mr. Litke has not provided us with any city policy or according to Robert’s Rules of Order that supersedes the rights of a deliberative assembly. Since Mr. Litke is highly educated, experienced in administrative best practices, protocol and grievance procedures it is very difficult for us to believe that his actions are unintentional. The planning department has a copy of our by-laws also there is a copy on our web site for public viewing and input. Neighborhoodlink.com zip code 77051
The existing Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood, which includes 71, 72, & 76, submitted the requirements established by the city of Houston's planning department to be an official recognized super neighborhood. Being a recognized super neighborhood does not give any legislative governance or decision - making authority to the planning department or the city. If so it would be clearly listed in the application process and or our by-laws and it is/was not. If it was added later and not distributed or explained to the entire super neighborhood councils then deception was practiced. As part of the requirements we submitted a copy of our by-laws to the planning department. We made no provision in our by-laws for neither the city nor the planning department to make any decisions or changes related to 71, 72, & 76. This is one reason we asserted that Mr. Litke overrode is authority. In short -- We gave him no authorization - he is out of order.

Freshman/Basic Guiding Principles References – Taught by colleges and universities & the city.

The following definitions according to Webster's Universal College Dictionary ISBN: 0-375-42567-5 is part of the guiding principles that we spoke of in our original complaint violated by Mr. Litke. These definitions also represent best practices principles related to any administrative operation/profession public or private. It certainly applies to this situation.

?˜ Protocol - the customs and regulations dealing with diplomatic formality, precedence, and etiquette - there is a duly elected president and board for 71, 72, & 76 that met the recognized requirements of the city. Standard accepted protocol - a department head cannot make decisions for another department head without appropriate communication, permission or total city government reorganization. How can you, the city or SSSPSN accept a decision made by a city department head for a volunteer community organization that Mr. Litke is not a member of and has no authority over it?
?˜ Precedence - the right to be dealt with or place before others priority in order, or rank. Since there is an established order/rank -- president - Mr. Litke has circumvented due process and we would like to know why he didn’t contact the president.
?˜ Procedure - any given mode of conducting legal, parliamentary, or similar business. Under no circumstances in the requirements by the city to be recognized is there a provision for the city to act in our behalf. The only word identifying the city’s role is assisting.
?˜ Policy - a course of action adopted by and pursed by a government, ruler, political party etc; prudence, practical wisdom or expediency. We have never discussed adopting a policy to allow the city to make any decision for us. (Article IX Amendments our by-laws)
?˜ Principles - an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct; a personal or specific basis of conduct or management; a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct; the method of formation, operation, or procedure exhibited in a given instance. Our by-laws are our guiding principles along with other establish modes of operations.
?˜ Process - a systematic series of actions directed to some end; the action of going forward or on. Speaks for itself. Our actions are going forward. His actions have created a division that is having a negative effect and a counter reaction to our progress.
?˜ Ethnics - the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or governing a particular group, culture etc. the branch of philosophy dealing with values related to human conduct, with respect to the rightness or wrongness of actions and the goodness as of an individual. This speaks for it self.
?˜ Ethical - being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, ESP. the standards of a profession. If there is any evidence that administers policies and procedures in his department in the same manner in which has mismanaged this basic administrative action similar to a personnel matter he should be reprimanded.
?˜ Underhanded - not open aboveboard - secret - He has not contacted us concerning this matter but apparently he has contacted others.
?˜ Development - the act or process of developing - One of the guiding principles of the super neighborhood is participating in the process of developing the skills of self-governance and problem management/solving. Mr. Litke has ignored that guiding principle apparently.
?˜ Developing - undergoing development growing; evolving; not yet highly industrialized. - We have demonstrated the capacity and are developing a higher degree of proficiency on behalf of the community at-large in problem management/solving. In fact Mayor Brown, Mr. Litke and the planning department have praised us for our outstanding contributions to the community and the neighborhood oriented government concept.
?˜ Recognized – to identify as something or someone previously seen, known etc. to identify from knowledge of appearance or characteristics; to perceive or acknowledge as existing, true, or valid. Before and after the election our board was valid and the city recognized that we are the legal and official body that met all their requirements in order to represent 71, 72, & 76.

Summary

Mr.Litke’ s mishandling of this matter goes beyond just policy infractions. A city employee has a duty to respond to requests from citizens certainly if they are reasonable. We will address some of Mr. Litke’s questionable behavior in other arenas. You are asking us questions and we are responding in a timely manner to the best of our ability however, we hope you are getting the same cooperation from Mr. Litke.

We are not city employees assigned to the planning department; we are volunteers, taxpayers, residents, community leaders, ministers, and citizens. In our original complaint we wanted to address his bias, unethical and underhanded mode of operation particularly since he has failed to contact me in any official capacity to this date related to this matter. Furthermore on several occasions I have requested meetings, lunch meetings to discuss this with him and he has refused to respond. That is unethical and unprofessional at the very least. Therefore, we are asking that Mr. Litke and a representative from the Mayor’s office be in attendance at a community meeting as part of the resolution process after we have resolved and corrected his violations. Mr. Litke’s actions should be sited and overturned. As part of the corrective process Mr. Litke should be required to take responsibility for his error and meet with us as part of the corrective process.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need additional information and we would be happy to arrange a meeting with you and members of our group. Our support base is very interested in reviewing the material that you have collected up to this point. We have established an ethics committee looking into this matter and a member of the committee will contact you.

Finally the Mysterious Letter 11/5/02

Lt. Hartnett, thank you for sending us a copy of this letter. I and we have never seen this letter until now. I still invite Mr. Litke to join me in taking a polygraph if he continues to say we have received this letter.

However, this letter does confirm our question asking for a copy of what was the validation process Mr. Litke used to verify the majority stakeholders in those areas because at least four civic clubs in those areas said to us they were never contacted and another said she thinks she was tricked.

Again thanks.

What we need now is a policy so this won't happen again.

Reference - 10/28/02

Memorandum


To: Lt. Thomas Hartnett
From; Charles X White
Subject: OIC Inquiry C02-500
Date: October 28, 2002

Lt. Hartnett, the only reason we requested an investigation in this matter is based on Mr. Litke’s refusal to respond to a series our questions related to his rationale and documentation that he based his decision to guide another super neighborhood within the existing boundaries without notifying the existing board/stakeholders? If Mr. Litke has a valid reason he is duty bound to share it as a public servant upon request to all interested parties.

His reluctance to respond to our basic request forced us to contact your office and others to try and make some sense out of his actions. In our original request to your office we requested that a policy be developed to prevent this type of misinformation and misunderstanding from occurring in the future, if there is no existing policy.

(1) No, I have never seen any copy and have not received a copy of a letter dated August 16, 2002, copied to Mayor Brown and myself. You have an email to this same affect. I said the same to you. Why ask me something that you already have in your file?

Lt. Harnett, I still don’t understand your line of questioning. If there was no need to contact me, if there was no established communication procedural protocol, why copy me (August 16,)? You have not responded to any of the definitions or established protocols that we have previously identified to you to support our position.

One of our questions to Mr. Litke is what was the validation process that he used to identify the majority of the stakeholders in those areas (71 & 72) that agreed to separate from the original group. Neither you nor he has answered that question.

(2) My answer to you was Article 5.1 and IX. I will include Article II

One of the reasons I said we don’t understand your line of questioning is because of what you said in (2) we have never been against a split. One of the repeated questions is, what policy was used by Mr. Litke to allow this to happen without contacting the existing board. Since there are no procedures that we are aware of from his department that would allow him to make such a decision for a deliberative assembly, then policies need to be put in place and his decision be over turned until we can start the corrective process to be voted on by members of the existing established recognized 71, 72, & 76. This would be the ethical thing to do. Such an action is a local matter not a city planning department director’s sole authority. See the memo from Steve Tinnermen. It is clear to us with what we have be able to find, that the city has no policy to address this type of situation therefore, our request grew out of a need. However, it seems that the victim is again being blamed for raising reasonable and responsible questions.

In your third question if you are asking me, how would I write a policy to prevent this from happening again -- I think you would just say that. Not put this in a hypothetical situation category and say you were giving me one last opportunity to express myself in a more positive way. This is neither a positive nor negative request on our part it is simply a request by volunteers to understand the process of validation etc. As a public servant obligated to insure the public trust we know that Mr. Litke is duty bond to respond to a reasonable request by citizens and he hasn’t.

The letter in question may or may not contain the answers to our questions we don’t know because none of us have seen it.

Summary

In my view there were two behavioral variations of infractions that were initiated by Mr. Litke:

?˜ Legislative and Jurisdictional (By-Laws) – which deals with our by-laws and the recognized status. In our by-laws Mr. Like and the planning department are not members and hold no office. In our organizational communications, which you have not asked to review, we give no authority to him. We have two memos from Mr. Litke where he refers to our group as making local decisions.

?˜ Ethical and Professional – which deals with all of the definitions that we referred you to in our other correspondence. By definition he has violated all of the ethical and procedural guidelines, in our view.

Since you have concluded that we have nothing else to add to our previous communications to the OIG in this regard, we will proceed with completing our inquiry report and making our recommendation to the inspector general. Why would you include a statement like this?

Lt. Hartnett, I realize you have a difficult job in some cases however; you must be the man for the job. Thank you for your efforts to help us create some understanding in this matter.