In January, I wrote a letter to the editor in our local newspaper following the Republican Gubernatorial primary debate that was held at UNT.  In it I critiqued the media, the city, and the university for failing to meaningfully assert Denton into the discussion of state politics.  Now that the Democratic Party brought their candidates to town for an Independence Day rally at Quakertown Park, thinkdenton.com was there to make sure Denton and our issues were front and center to the conversation.

Kevin Roden – 07.03.10

Former Houston Mayor and Democratic candidate for Governor Bill White was the featured guest of the event.  We caught up with White after his speech to ask him three Denton-centric questions…

Denton is home to two major universities – the University of North Texas and Texas Women’s University.  Tuition costs have increased significantly over the last few years.  You claim that you want to help lower tuition costs.  What are your specific ideas to accomplish this?

“We need to make public and higher education a top priority in the budget, that means that you don’t make across the board cuts,” White responded.

He also argued for the need to follow his model in Houston and get the schools to look at higher energy efficiencies for their campuses.  He expressed concern over the high cost of textbooks and said he’d like to see more of those offered online.

And White had a message for professors who roll into campus for only a couple hours a day while taking a salary from the taxpayers: “I will say that there are some faculty members who don’t do real research or don’t teach in the classroom but are sort of retiring on the job.  They need to move on.”

White puts some of the blame of university woes squarely on the back of the Governor-appointed Board of Regents.  “We need people on the boards who are not just there because they give a big campaign contribution,” he said.  This provided an appropriate transition to my next question…

Although UNT’s main campus is in Denton, there are currently no Regents from here.  Some concern has been raised, specifically at the city level, that the interests of Denton are not properly represented on the current Board.  If you are governor, will you make sure we have a regent from Denton on the Board of Regents at the University of North Texas?

You might recall tensions between UNT and the city grew this year following Chancellor Jackson’s decision to move his and other offices to Dallas from Denton.  Mayor Burroughs publicly criticized the decision and warned that it meant a significant shift in UNT’s focus away from Denton, where there has been a mutually beneficial relationship between the two since the school’s founding over 100 years ago.

During our interview with Mayor Burroughs during this Spring’s campaign, he raised the issue of the need for a Regent from Denton once again.  At that time, Burroughs was not ready to call the Governor’s office to request this, citing the current campaign and the need to wait until November when the gubernatorial election is over.

So we asked it of this potential Texas Governor.  His response:  “I don’t know why it is that Governor Perry wasn’t able to find a single person qualified in Denton.  If you look at his appointees, they are usually big contributors… Certainly I would expect to be able to find somebody from Denton with ties to the community to serve on the college board.”

Well Mayor, it looks like you have a campaign promise to lean on in the event Bill White defeats Perry.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding natural gas drilling in the region.  Here in Denton, there’s drilling right across the street from a city park and a neighborhood.  What can you do as Governor to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again?

White’s response was brief, yet significant.  “That’s going to be more of an issue with the local city council.”

Wait a second?  During the controversial public hearing and deliberations on this issue before City Council, local officials tended to shift the blame and responsibility to the State level.  One council member, during the thinkdenton.com candidate forum at Jupiter House in April, offered to lead a road trip to Austin to express Denton’s frustration with Texas’ oil and gas policies.  So here I am talking to the man who might be our next Governor and he sends me back to the Denton City Council to deal with it.

Next I decided to spend some time with Jim Weems, Democratic candidate for Railroad Commissioner, to ask him a similar question.  His response was very similar to White’s.  Regarding the Railroad Commission’s ability to keep gas drills from being placed in a city right next to city parks and neighborhoods, Weem said, “That is in a very gray area as to whether the Railroad Commission has authority on that.  They do have spacing authority from property lines.  You can have cities that have other variances and setback requirements and that sort of thing.”

Weems, however, left open the possibility that this sort of regulation could be put into the hands of the commission if it goes to the Texas Legislature and demands it.  He criticized the current commission for failing to protect the citizens.  “When a lot of these rules for the Railroad Commission were written up, they were written in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.  No one contemplated someone drilling a well in a city let alone drilling there and then drilling sideways for a mile.”  But the point remains, as it stands, according to both White and Reem, this sort of regulation is a matter for city policy.

I also asked Weems about recent reports of high levels of toxins being released from local well and drilling sites and the current controversy over TCEQ’s ability to regulate this issue.  He claimed that it should be the Railroad Commission’s responsibility to regulate air quality, citing the ineptitude of TCEQ: “They’ve been a failure for 20 years.  They are not very good at what they do.  [Regulating air quality] is not their job, it’s the Railroad Commission’s job.  They don’t know how to do it and they are going to screw it up.  Their rules are incredibly costly on business and they don’t accomplish anything.”

Finally, I turned to the lone candidate for national office at the day’s event, Neil Durrance who is running to replace incumbent Michael Burgess (R) in the November election.  After talking Burgess and his chances in an environment where most are predicting heavy hits for Democratic candidates throughout the nation, I asked him the same question about gas drilling in Denton.  Rather then pointing to either local or state authorities, Durrance seems to think that the entire problem could be solved with the help of our congressional representative in Washington: “All the gas drilling problems around here would stop with a phone call from one congressman.  That phone call never came.”

He then gave two specifics on how he would deal with the problem if elected in November, which included a call for a moratorium on the fracking process: “First of all, we’d remove the exemptions of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts for gas drilling.  Second, there’s a difference between drilling and fracking.  We’d stop the fracking until we can determine what is the result of the fracking, both geologically and on our water resources.”

Where have we come on trying to find out how to stop gas drilling right next to city parks and neighborhoods?  The city officials tell us to talk to the state officials.  When we talk with our state officials, they tell us to go back and talk to our city officials.  Then there’s this lone guy aiming for a national office who thinks he can fix it himself.

To be fair, this issue is exceedingly more complex than this.  There have been long-standing state laws regarding mineral rights and drilling policy that limited the options of our city council.  So they were right, in some respect, to pass the buck to Austin.  But these state politician hopefuls are right in claiming that ordinances regulating the placement of drills are in the hands of local government.

The City Council has called for a look into tougher regulations in this regard and is currently examining its options.

One thing is for sure, natural gas drilling was on the top of everyone’s mind at the rally today.  Not a speaker got up to the microphone who didn’t mention this as a campaign issue.  Now whether or not the local, state, and national entities can stop pointing fingers at one another long enough to work together to solve the problem remains to be seen.