Ron Neiman should be fired. Lewisville needs a city attorney that can do more than avoid lawsuits. The city deserves a proactive attorney that will provide the city manager and city council with sound legal advice. I don't have anything against city attorney Ron Neiman personally. I'm sure he's a very nice individual. At this time, however, he's the wrong man for the job. It has become abundantly clear that, for several reasons, Ron Neiman either needs to resign or be fired.
The city council, after increased pressure from Lewisville residents, has finally decided to do something about our illegal alien problem, including the issue of Day Laborers in Huffines Plaza and
7-Eleven. This is a time when we need a knowledgeable and honest city attorney to give us sound advice. In a
memo to the city council about the illegal alien activity at day labor sites, Ron Neiman talks about what he considers to be a "very delicate issue of U.S. constitutional law regarding freedom of speech and assembly", saying that, "other than regulations regarding public right-of-way, we have been unable to find any feasible ordinance which could be successfully defended against the almost certain litigation which would challenge such regulation."
Not only is this false, but there are neighboring cities that have successfully dealt with illegal day labor activities without any lawsuits being filed. We're paying Ron Neiman to tell us that we can't do what needs to be done to address the problem. Contrary to easily obtainable evidence, he claims that it will open us up to lawsuits. What type of solutions are we talking about here? The
solution that I offered involves simply enforcing our current zoning regulations. It's common sense. You can read more about it here. It's 100% legal, but it doesn't involve the public right-of-way, which means Ron Neiman is against it. The implications we can draw from this stance is that the city can't enforce any of our zoning regulations. A city attorney who advises the city council that zoning regulations are unenforceable should be terminated.
Why does Ron Neiman still have a job? The city council and mayor can't fire the city attorney. Only the city manager can hire or fire a city attorney. I don't know what Claude King thinks of the advice he's been getting from Ron Neiman, but I believe Claude is a very capable city manager. If the only variable was Ron's performance, I feel that he would have been fired long ago. For this reason, it's troubling to me that Ron Neiman has such a close, personal relationship with former mayor Gene Carey, and current mayor Dean Ueckert. During Carey's farewell address to the city council, he said, "Council, I would ask you to continually listen to what Ron tells you." He went on to talk about his close friendship with Ron, reminiscing about the road trips they had been on together. Would it be awkward if the city manager were to fire Ron Neiman? Yes, I believe it would be. That's precisely why our leaders should refrain from such inappropriate relationships inside the city government. Ueckert should have a talk with his good friend and ask him to retire. Our leaders should strive to be above reproach.
My hope is that the city attorney will resign before he has the chance to waste any more of the city's money. In the
Day Labor memo, Ron Neiman mentioned his intention to hire outside counsel to review these matters. Honestly, we don't need a city attorney who suggests spending $7,500 to hire another attorney because he doesn't understand how to enforce our zoning without violating the constitution. Surely we can hire a city attorney that doesn't need to outsource his own job.
I hope that the mayor will do the right thing, or support the city manager and ask him to do the right thing. I'm looking forward to the day when we have a city attorney that has the knowledge and desire to make decisions that are in the best interest of this great city.
