Let us review. I wrote to City Councilman Carlos Cisneros on February sixth concerning repairs to Pablo Kisel Boulevard which culminating in a response from the city engineer, Carlos Lastros, with some information about the project’s inception and who was involved. It wasn’t very informative, frankly. In response to a question about standards, he said, “The city typically follows Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) standards for road construction.” And in all responses, he carefully limited himself to his own tenure, naturally enough, and assured me that all is done according to “very strict standards which are enforced by our inspectors.” Good to know. But, in response to further questions, he noted, “this happened 9 years ago which was way before my time and unfortunately the record keeping was not as good as it should have been.”

Two questions, he said, would have to be answered by the Public Works Department, questions on how many work orders had been made and how much had been spent on those orders. So I called Public Works. That department was in some disarray, it seemed. It had an interim director who, I was told this morning, has since been approved as the director. Since I was working by email, I wrote to Lourdes Villanueva, because she was first on the “Administration Staff” list on the department’s contact Web page. After I waited a day or two with no response, I called and, after some dickering, spoke with Santiago Navarro. He told me he had heard of my request, apparently from Councilman Cisneros, and told me he was working on a response. On February Eighteen, more than a week and several calls later, I received a note assuring me he had been working diligently, but it was complex. He says it better:

I received your call last week regarding your inquiries on Pablo Kisel Rd. I am
sorry it has taken me longer than expected to respond to your inquiries.
Nonetheless, I would like to ask you to please contact Estela Von Hatten, City
Secretary at 548-6045 or at her email to request a Public Information
Application so that we can forward you a response.

Typically, all requests are handled in this fashion so we can comply with
certain state and local requirements when dealing with inquiries. It won't take
too long to receive your response ( I have most of the information ready) and it
helps the city keep track of all inquiries so that we can become aware of what
concerns our citizens may have. This does help in allowing us to keep track of
what works and doesn't work so that we can find the solution to the problem(s).

I put requests in to the City Secretary’s office on February Twentieth, a Wednesday, and left the following Friday for Indiana. I called today to see how things were going and the answer, on a call back a couple of hours later from one Jessica García, was that the requests had been forwarded to the engineering department and we were still waiting for a response. I confused her, apparently, when I pointed out that one of the requests was for the Public Works Department, but her only answer was that it had been forwarded.

I’m fairly sure this is not the run-around, but it sure feels like it.