I've Been Doing My Homework, Seven Points

A week ago, I walked into a city council meeting in Seven Points with a notebook and a few questions. Since then, I have been doing my homework. And I mean that literally.

I have filed public information requests. I have read through every publicly available city ordinance going back decades. I have reviewed city agendas, public information response documents, financial records, and legal filings. I have conducted direct, on-the-record interviews with elected officials who were willing to sit down (or pick up the phone) and answer hard questions. I have studied the legal framework that governs how a Type A General Law city in Texas is supposed to operate under the Texas Local Government Code.

And I have been watching the conversations happening on social media.

The Interviews

I want to say something about the people who have spoken to me directly.

Multiple council members have given me their time, their perspective, and their willingness to go on record about what they have experienced serving in Seven Points city government. I respect that enormously. In small-town Texas, going on the record about problems inside your own city takes courage. The social consequences are real, the political consequences are real, and these individuals know that better than anyone.

Their accounts are detailed, specific, and consistent with the documentary evidence I have independently gathered through public records. I am not going to lay out everything they told me right now. Some of what I have learned will inform future reporting when the time is right. But I will say this: the picture these interviews paint, combined with the public documents I have reviewed, is both more complex and more concerning than what most people following this story on Facebook currently understand.

To the council members who have spoken with me: thank you. Your willingness to put facts on the record matters more than you probably realize.

The Social Media Problem

Speaking of Facebook.

There are voices in the Seven Points community, and in related social media groups, who are confidently steering public discourse in a direction that the documented facts simply do not support.

I have seen claims posted online about who is responsible for the budget stalemate. I have seen characterizations of specific council members' actions that directly contradict what the city's own records show. I have seen blame placed on individuals who, according to multiple independent sources and the city's own documentation, were actually the ones trying to force accountability.

Some of these posts are written with enough conviction that they sound authoritative. They are not. They are based on incomplete information, secondhand accounts, or narratives that conveniently leave out key facts.

I understand that people have strong opinions about their city government. That is healthy and appropriate. But there is a difference between having an opinion and spreading information that is factually wrong. When inaccurate narratives take hold in a community, they make it harder for residents to evaluate their elected officials fairly. They muddy the water right when clarity matters most.

If you are one of the people posting confidently about what happened with the budget, or who is blocking what, or why certain things happened the way they did, I have a genuine question for you: have you read the city's own documents? Have you filed a single public information request? Have you spoken directly to multiple council members and compared their accounts against the paper trail?

I have. And what the documents show is different from some of the stories being told online.

For the Taxpayers

Here is what I think every Seven Points resident should understand heading into the coming months.

You have a May election approaching. The mayor's seat and council seats will be on the ballot. As of today, the city does not appear to have published a formal list of candidates. That means filing deadlines, candidate forums, and voter education are all still ahead of you.

This is not the time to tune out. This is the time to pay closer attention than you ever have.

I am not going to tell you who to vote for. That is your decision, and it should be an informed one. What I am going to tell you is that the decisions made in May will determine whether the structural problems in this city get addressed or get worse. The budget situation, the police department questions, the concerns about how city business is being conducted: none of that disappears after an election. But the people you put in charge of addressing those issues will matter a great deal.

Do your own research. Read the agendas. Attend the meetings. Ask candidates direct questions about specific issues. Ask them about the budget. Ask them about how police leadership should be appointed under the Local Government Code. Ask them about public information compliance and whether the city is meeting its legal obligations. Ask them whether council members should have the ability to place items on the agenda.

If a candidate can answer those questions with specifics, that tells you something. If they cannot, that tells you something too.

A Note to the Noise

I want to be direct about something, and I want certain people to read this carefully.

I have reviewed more documents, conducted more interviews, and analyzed more evidence than I have published. What you have seen from me so far, one opinion piece, a transparency alert, and some public comments, represents a fraction of what I know.

I am not in the business of publishing everything the moment I have it. I am in the business of being thorough, accurate, and fair. That takes time. It takes verification. It takes cross-referencing multiple independent sources against each other and against the documentary record.

But make no mistake: the research is ongoing, it is detailed, and it is building toward a factual record that will be very difficult to argue with.

If you have been posting misleading information online, whether out of genuine misunderstanding or for other reasons, consider this a courtesy notice. The facts are coming. And facts, unlike social media posts, do not care about loyalty, friendship, or political alignment. They just sit there, documented and verifiable, waiting to be read by anyone who wants to read them.

I would encourage anyone who has been contributing to public misinformation, even unintentionally, to take a step back. Review the public records that are actually available. Reconsider whether the narrative you have been promoting holds up under scrutiny. If it does, you have nothing to worry about. If it does not, now would be a good time to quietly adjust before the record speaks for itself.

What's Next

I am going to keep showing up. I am going to keep filing records requests. I am going to keep talking to people who are willing to share what they know. And I am going to keep publishing, on my timeline, as the evidence warrants.

Seven Points, your election is coming. The people making noise on social media are not the ones who are going to fix your city's problems. Informed voters will.

Pay attention to the facts. They are the only thing that will matter when the dust settles.