Sunny Side /South Park Super Neighborhood

Charles X White to Robert Litke Polygraph -9/5/02

Public Servant to Public Master

Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood
4302 Reed Road Suite E
Houston, Texas 77051
713-734-3599 – Fax 713 -734-3597 – email: charitypro@ev1.net
Memorandum
September 5, 2002

To: Robert Litke, Director of Planning
City of Houston
From: Charles X White, President Sunny Side
South Park Super Neighborhood
Subject: Follow Up to 71, 72, & 76/Corrected Copy

cc. Mayor Lee P. Brown
Oliver Spellmen
Rev. Marvin Delaney
Executive Board
Minnetex
Willie Belle Boone
Edith Clark

Mr. Litke, your selective refusal from responding to our requests is indicative of your lack of sensitivity of the guiding principles set by our super neighborhood or any super neighborhood. Obviously, you’re position in maintaining these types of lies, misinformation and traveling great lengths to cover up your errors in judgment must be a comfortable position for you in these types of matters.

?˜ Your reference to Minnetex as a comparative example was a total lie and insult to the facts.
?˜ There are several civic clubs in Sunny Side and Crestmont that are not aware of and have not been contacted concerning the request to start a new so-called illegal 71 and 76 headed by the losers of the election.
?˜ I never asked you to review this matter. It is not your position to review a local matter.

I did ask you to do the following:
1. Not to get involved with local issues
2. To refer any questions or concerns with Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood in writing to me/executive board.
3. Any communications with us to put in writing in an effort to reduce confusion
4. To meet with you and your staff to reduce confusion
5. To go to lunch to discuss misinformation
6. Not to take any action in this matter until and unless we receive a written complaint or concern

Most of my documented requests came before May 20, 2002 but certainly in time for you to respond before the end of June 2002. You have yet to answer these and other questions concerning our guiding principles/policies.

It is unfortunate that you have pushed me down a road that will no doubt get very ugly and public for all involved.

I am not going to allow you and others to frame me as a liar or being unfair without documenting your premise and due process. We have a history of responding to any and all requests made of us by stakeholders without delay and dispensing them fairly.

Our past and present duly elected administration has been open to all based on capacity building, no pressure and power sharing. Our leadership workshop series is just one example of our capacity building demonstration models. In fact we still a copy of our first three executive board meetings best practices policy and producers manual (2000). This manual formed the base of our attempt to use guiding principles as an executive board administrative procedure.

In my view much of this could be avoided if you took the common sense approach in this matter. I can see why all 88 super neighborhoods are not up and functioning in 5 years under your leadership. Could it be that you are not committed to minority neighborhoods solving their own problems? Since you can’t solve them, you support slow growth or no growth or division. Maybe you should take a first look at the principles of capacity building, power sharing and the rewards of those concepts in relationship to the neighborhood oriented government concept.

I am not angry with you as a person; you seem like a nice fellow but I am disappointed in your professional application in this matter. Circumstances may have clouded your judgment and with that comes the possibility of thunder, lighting, wind and rain.

I am upset with your handling of these policy issues. Based on the current airing alone of the June 20, 2002 recognition of two super neighborhoods you are wrong in the handling of this matter. If you are not a 100% wrong you have a high percentage of inaccuracies in your reasoning and stated position, which makes your view highly suspect.

I am going to ask Rev. Marvin Delaney and Rev. Andrew Burks to contact you this week as part of our investigating team, to see if you will respond to any reasonable conversation or invitation. It should be very easy for you to refer this matter to us. Your best practices choice was simply to refer it to the current elected board.

Your strong involvement would suggest that you have some unidentified interest in allowing this gross oversight in protocol to be recommended to Mayor Brown as a reasonable course of action. Thank you. Committedly,

Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood
4302 Reed Road Suite E
Houston, Texas 77051
713-734-3599 – Fax 713 -734-3597 – Email: charitypro@ev1.net
September 5, 2002

Timothy Oettmeier
Office of Inspector General
61 Riesner, 3rd Floor, Room 342
1200 Travis
Houston. Texas 77002

Dear Mr. Oettmeier:

I am formally submitting a request to investigate the Director of the City of Houston Planning Department Robert Litke’s consistent disregard of our written requests to respond in a timely manner to several questions related to his breaking department protocol, polices, best practices/guiding principles, Texas Election Code, Roberts Rules of Order and professional ethics, in regards to the Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood. We are not aware of any protocol, policies or procedures that would allow the director to override the duly elected board of the Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood without any notification to the board. The fact the election was never formally contested compounds our reason for this action. We would to get the answers to the following questions:

1. What guiding principles did he use to override the super neighborhood executive board?
2. If there were any complaints verbal or written why weren’t they referred to the executive board?

a. To our knowledge according to the current information available to us Mr. Litke has no reference that authorizes him to make such a decision. We are requesting the elements that went into his decision to be made known to us.

We have many questions that the director has not addressed. We are seeking your assistance to help us define, develop and implement clearer best practices/guide lines to prevent any future misunderstandings as well as to correct the current situation. We would welcome an opportunity meet with you to better understand this process at your earliest convince. We will provide you with our full menu of documentation of requests and complaints with no response form the director, when we meet. If you have any immediate suggestions please don’t hesitate to make them.
Petitioner:
Charles X White, President, Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood

Polygraph

Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood
4302 Reed Road # E
Houston, Texas 77051
713-734-3599 Fax 713-734-3597 Email: charitypro@ev1.net

Memorandum
October 6, 2002

To: Robert Litke, Director City of Houston Planning Department
From: Charles X White, President Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood/ CXW
Subject: Deception or What?
Cc. Mayor Lee P. Brown, Executive Board, General Stakeholders, OIG & Others
Mr. Litke, it is again my unfortunate position to point out some inaccurate information from your office that continues to increase the division that you helped create with your underhanded administrative (non) procedures. It seems only when it applies to the southeast community.

On September 24, 2002 at our SNAP - planning meeting Wanda’s response to a question related to a letter that was recently sent to many civic clubs concerning a new super neighborhood being recognized within the existing boundaries of our Sunny Side/South Park SN. In Wanda’s (community liaison) response she said that I received a letter to that effect. My response to her and everyone else at the meeting was I have not seen any letter referring to any such thing. She also mentioned that the letter in question was not sent by the city. She also made a statement that the civic clubs could attend any super neighborhood group that they selected. What in the hell is going on?

On October 3, 2002 in an open forum of community stakeholders Ms. Swindle stated that I (Charles X White) was in receipt of a letter from you (Robert Litke) that explained that a new super neighborhood was recognized within our existing boundaries. How did they get that misunderstanding? I have received no such letter from you or anyone else at any time up to the current date October 7, 2002. Nor have I received a phone call nor been privy to a meeting to discuss this at anytime about two super neighborhoods in this area.

This brings me to your continued deception in matters that are community related. Which you as department head have no jurisdiction over. At best you can make a written inquiry and possible suggestions to the existing executive board for consideration or action – but once again the great Anglo father had to save the poor people from working out their own problems.

It appears to me that history is repeating it self as you take advantage of people that have good intentions to drive wedges between community groups and stakeholders. In the end you will have achieved division and created another obstacle for us to unite for the good of our community. All existing material related Neighborhood Oriented Government points to stakeholder’s solving/managing his or her own problems. Government for the people by the people is the letter and spirit of NOG. Not by individual department heads.

The principles of self-governance have been stolen from our community and I want them returned. The value of due process has been circumvented and I would like that process to be returned also.
Additional Suggestions:
?˜ Send delicate information either by email and postal registered receipt. Then there is a traceable process to validate what happened. Many people have been told that I have a letter, which I do not. So, send it to me.
?˜ Lets you and I take a polygraph cut through the games and find out who is lying or misleading the people in the community and at city hall. I look forward to your response.

Original Filing of our Complaint on Robert Litke's Policies

Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood
4302 Reed Road Suite E
Houston, Texas 77051
713-734-3599 – Fax 713 -734-3597 – Email: charitypro@ev1.net

September 5, 2002

Timothy Oettmeier
Office of Inspector General
61 Riesner, 3rd Floor, Room 342
Houston. Texas 77002

Dear Mr. Oettmeier:

We are formally submitting and requesting an investigation into the actions of the Director of the City of Houston’s Planning Department Robert Litke. He has consistently disregarded responding to our specific written questions/requests related to his department’s interference with local super neighborhood policies, protocol and guiding principles over a six-month period. Our official election was held on May 20, 2002 consisting of 54 voting members of whom 39 voted in the election from our districts 71, 72, & 76. The election was carried out by a precinct judge (Mrs. Willie Belle Boone) with 22 years of experience with the election process. Mrs. Boone consulted with the city attorney and the Texas Election Code and Robert Rules of Order before the election was held. Mrs. Boone conducted an open election that would help us establish our election policy for our next election because we had no provisions in our then by-laws at that time.

Several members from 71 and 76 that voted and ran for office and lost. At some point they went to Mr. Litke after the election allegedly dissatisfied with the outcome of the election. They proceeded to ask him to allow them to start their own super neighborhood without any official notification to the established elected officers. Mr. Litke made a recommendation the Mayor Brown to allow this split to take place, again without any notification to the existing officers of 71,72 & 76 to this date. We view this as one of several breaches of established guiding principles/policies that he has violated established by the city and our by-laws. We regard this as a local issues and not a decision for a city department head according to the department’s position of what a local issue is. If there were no established super neighborhood council for 71, 72 & 76 then he might be correct.

Our premise is he should have referred the matter to us for a local ruling. The super neighborhoods were created as a vehicle for citizens to develop their problem-solving skills and manage their problems at the neighborhood level. Not by a department head.

We are not aware of any reason, protocol, policies or procedures that would allow the director to override the guiding principles, policy and our procedural development process of the established elected board of officers for the Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood. The fact the election was never formally contested compounds our reason for this request. We are requesting your assist to get the answers to the following questions to start with:

1. What guiding principles did the director use to override the super neighborhood’s executive board’s guiding principles and by-laws?
2. If there were any complaints verbal or written why weren’t they referred to the executive board in writing from his department for a response from our executive board?

a. According to the current information available to us, Mr. Litke has no reference that authorizes him to make such decisions. We are requesting your help to secure a copy of the elements that went into his decision with a timeline and his recommendation to Mayor Brown? We also would like to know, has he made similar decisions with other super neighborhoods?

We have many questions concerning policy issues that the director has not addressed. We are seeking your assistance to help us define, develop and implement clearer best practices/guide lines for this department. Where there are no clearly defined policies or if there are existing policies, we are seeking your assistance in making them clearer and distribute them to the various super neighborhoods in a timely manner. We are also asking that Mr. Litke’s decision be overturned if his decision was incorrect.

We want to find out if the authority of the planning departments director includes the authority to override a community based group’s by-laws or guiding principles without invitation, due process or notification and we would also like to know where those policies are printed. In an effort to prevent or reduce any future misunderstandings around these types of policy issues and correcting the current situation we seek your participation to implement this process.

In our opinion his decision has ripped open a division in the community that could have been avoided or professionally managed in a way that it could be used as a teachable moment or a learning experience in policy and procedures development.

We welcome an opportunity to meet with you. We are seeking to understand and to get a ruling from your office in this matter. We are prepared to meet you at your earliest convenience. We are unfamiliar with the details of this process as it relates to the duties of your office. We will provide you with all of the communications with Mr. Litke regarding this matter at your request.

All of our attempts to communicate with the director have gone unanswered. There are some who would try and position our request to you as a hostile inquiry however; we are only focusing on due process and procedures, not personality conflicts.

We will mail a hard copy of this request as a follow up to this email.

Respectfully submitted by and on behalf of the Executive Board, Stakeholders and Charles X White, President, Sunny Side/South Park Super Neighborhood