Opinion

An Independent Attitude

Commissioner Perez declines to meet with our board

In her Aug. 23 “Across the Fence" column, my colleague Kathie Greer took Potter County Commissioner Joe Kirkwood to task for his lack of professionalism and lack of courtesy.

Publisher George Schwarz

She also praised Commissioner Manny Perez and Judge Arthur Ware for their being polite and their professionalism in helping her understand the TIRZ.

Imagine, then, my surprise to find a message on my voice mail on Aug. 28 from Commissioner Manny Perez:

Manny Perez calling

"George, this is Commissioner Manny Perez and I have read your paper about three times. The three times I have read, it was last year somewhere, but I have heard that you have really put me down and I know you have. If you don't know anything about me, George, I would like to have a talk with you to see if we can talk this, and I'm not asking favors for me. I want to tell you who I am and you can tell me who you are."

So, I looked back to see how I had put Commissioner Perez down and the closest I could come was not endorsing him for re-election and saying, in an Aug. 16 column, that he and others opposing the TIRZ were misguided. I didn't see anything personal in that.

But in that same message, Commissioner Perez continued, “I am not a Yankee, but I'm true natural American. I don't like your comments, and I just don't care for your paper, what you write. You find out the facts and then you write them. But, George, I know who you are and to me you are not worth talking to, but I'll sit down so you can know who I am, because I am a man of my word, and I speak my word, and what I mean what I say and I say what I mean.

"I'm not being a smart aleck. I'm just being truthful to you. Thank you. If you want to call me, fine. If you don't. If you don't know anything about me, please don't write anything about this trashy stuff that you write, OK? I know Amarillo, and I was born in Amarillo. I've been here 67 years. You've been here, probably about seven. Thank you, sir."

Call me 'George'

So, on one hand, Commissioner Perez invites me to talk to get to know me and then decides he already knows me. Gee, he knows me well enough to call me by my first name? And, although I am a taxpayer and therefore he works for me, he seems to expect me to call him Commissioner Perez.

I thought, well, even at that, I would like to hear what he had to say, so I called him a day or two later to invite him to meet with our editorial board.

Commissioner Perez was even more pugnacious:

George: You wanted to get together.

Perez: Well, it is fine with me. You are the one that started this. I can finish it.

George: I do not know what you mean by that.

Perez: Well, I mean that you put garbage that is not true, George. You only live here seven years and you think you know the whole town. I have been here 67 years, and I am still learning but I know the needs of this east side, and I don't take advantage of what I do. I know that the people must like me because I am still being elected.

George: Well, I tell you what. What we would like to do is invite you to meet with our editorial board.

Perez: I don't believe in editorial boards anymore, George. That's a bunch of bullshit.

George: Really?

Perez: Let me tell you why, because I offended the editorial board with the Globe-News and all they do, is just like them, they write all these stories every day about that TIRZ and they think they are going to fool the people. Well, they don't, George.

I tell you, you can't buy me. Nobody can. And I'm not for sale. I think I have said it before, the paper has more ink and more paper but it hasn't got the voice, and I've got the voice of the east side, and as long as I can do what the people want me to do, I'll do it. They're my bosses.

Let me get through. I've been to the boards and last year, and they know how to get me up there last year. They did, you did it, they did it. They didn't accomplish nothing.

The thing that they said about me, and they brought out in the paper that some lawyer had given me some money.

Yeah, they gave me $49 (or $149, we couldn't tell), George. I didn't have to report those. You should have all come back and find where did you get this money. I didn't have to tell them where I got the money.

George: Well, I will tell you what. I am going to repeat my invitation to come and meet with our editorial board.

Perez: I will repeat again that I don't give a damn about the boards, OK.
4 years and counting

Now, for the benefit of the reader, I arrived in Amarillo in June 2003, so I've actually been here about four years.

The conversation continued with Perez saying, “Yeah, that's all I'm going to say. You can write whatever you do, say and like I said you got more, you got all that ink and then paper, I got the voice, OK?"

George: You are a public official.

Perez: Bye. Bye-bye.

George: And you are on the record.

Perez: On the record? You are not going to do what they did to this person, this guy, this senator, what happened. I'm not one of those. I have a clean record. And if you want to tell the people that I am a horse's butt, it's fine with me. You know what I mean. It is not going to hurt my business. Let me tell you, George, before you start saying things about me, you read what I have done. I want you to come to my house and read, walk into my house and see why I have accomplished so much.

George: What have you accomplished?

Perez: I have accomplished, and I was a sports, and sports to help kids, and I was a good boxer and I have a big name and that is the reason I have been, because I have been good to the people. I have been good to the people.

To you, I might not be good, because you know I don't like garbage and you have never been to a commissioner's meeting. In the times I have been there,
I haven't seen you there hardly, I mean I never did. But you are not here to the forums, you know, when they have these town hall meetings and never came, but then you don't have the decency of talking to me and giving me your card.

Isn't that something?

And then you put this garbage, Mr. George, I don't have to answer. You can say whatever the hell you please, OK? Bye.

And then Commissioner Perez, a public official whose work at the county is paid for by my taxes, hung up.

We get the government we deserve by casting our votes. Is this boorish behavior good for Potter County?

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Posted: September 13, 2007