Reporter
Texas Monthly Reporter
JUSTICE IN EL PASO
Southern California mystery writer Ross McDonald in his best book, The Goodby Look, has his world-weary private eye hero Lew Archer lament, "I have a secret passion for mercy . . . but justice is what keeps happening to people."
Richard Wheatley's justice for filing a misdemeanor complaint against El Paso Mayor Fred Hervey and Mayor Pro Tern Ruben Schaeffer for allegedly conspiring to avoid a quorum under a section of the Texas Open Meetings Law was to be fired from his job as a television news reporter and anchorman on the El Paso NBC affiliate, KTSM-TV.
Wheatley is no bilge of idealism or a firebrand radical. He is conservative in politics; he likes being a part of the Naval Reserve and lives at home with his mother who he enjoys and respects.
During the two years he worked for KTSM he won several Associated Press awards, several local news film awards, and had more than a few NBC stories aired nationally. The station executives have not used incompetence as a reason for his dismissal.
The story begins early this year. The new law prohibits elected officials from gathering in groups of more than two to discuss or conduct city business without posting a public meeting notice 72 hours before the day of the meeting, complete with agenda.
Enter the mayor. When the good citizens of El Paso elected Fred Hervey they got themselves a businessman above all else. President Richard Nixon once said, "If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?" The moral and business philosophy behind that statement would be vigorously embraced by Mayor Fred Hervey.
Among other things, the millionaire mayor owns a giveaway shopper newspaper, a radio station, a chain of drive-in restaurants, and started the Circle-K convenience stores in the West, now 700 strong. His civic and personal economic philosophies complement one another exactly. The business of El Paso is business, the pesky press be damned.
On January 4 Hervey allegedly stood in the door of his office with regional federal transportation official Ed Foreman and said, "We're going to meet with you and only one alderman so we won't have the press in here. Then we'll meet at 11 a.m. with the press."
Wheatley and veteran El Paso Herald-Post city beat reporter, 43-year-old Wayne McClintock, were shut out.
The Herald-Post, over the signature of editor Pete Lee and reporter McClintock, sent a letter of protest. Hervey responded with a declaratory suit, calling tor Lee and McClintock to pay expenses should Hervey win.
Then on January 24, during a scheduled city council meeting, alderman E. H. Baeza brought up an item not on the agenda as prescribed by the open meetings law. Wheatley protested but the council continued, saying they were merely going to discuss, not decide. This flies in the face of an opinion made earlier by City Attorney John Ross, Jr., for the benefit of the El Paso Civic Center, which specified that any meeting must stick to agenda items posted 72 hours in advance of the day of a meeting.
At this point Wheatley asked his station to take up the legal gauntlet. They refused, saying it would destroy their reputation as an objective news organization. He then made his decision. He would exercise his rights as a citizen to legally petition the government to correct what he considered a violation of the law.
On January 28 Wheatley filed misdemeanor complaints alleging that the mayor and mayor pro tern conducted closed sessions, and conspired to meet without a quorum.
That afternoon Schaeffer appeared before Judge Robert Galvan with a covey of the mayor's "team"—Manny Morales, E. H. Baeza, and Don Henderson—standing close by lending moral support. The defendant's attorney, Joseph Calamia, asked that the warrants be treated as a summons because of the "exemplary character" of the defendants, thus assuring the two city officials of not being fingerprinted, mugged, and booked like common criminals.
Granted, said County Attorney George Rodriguez, after questioning from Judge Galvan. Unusual, said Sheriff Mike Sullivan, but it had happened before. Mayor Pro Tern Schaeffer paid his $750 bond and left the courtroom.
Hervey, who had been out of town, surrendered to Sheriff Sullivan the next day and also bypassed the procedure of booking and fingerprinting. He paid his $750, said "no comment" to reporters, and left with an April 9 trial date.
The wheels had been set in motion for the first test of the state's open meetings law. Does the public have a right to be informed on meetings of their elected officials, or not?
The El Paso media apparently doesn't give a damn. "Give Light and People Will Find Their Own Way" reads the motto of the afternoon Herald-Post. To date, no editorial supporting Wheatley, and only a few letters to the editor praising the newsman's efforts constitute the "Light." The same sorry record is true for the morning Times. To date, not one El Paso television station has supported, or condemned, Wheatley's action. Only in The University of Texas at El Paso's student paper, The Prospector, has a thorough airing been given.
Things went from can to can't for Wheatley. On the evening of January 29 he received a telephone call from KTSM news director Jeff Gates telling him his reportorial duties were over. Wheatley was to be in charge of the news wire and photo-facsimile machines. He was to do busybody work—cleaning, ripping off the wirecopy, repairs—a job that could be performed well by a mature Rhesus monkey.
On February 12, Wheatley was fired. To date, no reason has been given by either Tri-State Broadcasting President Karl Wyler, Executive Vice-President Jack Rye, or News Director Gates.
In a February 6 memo to personnel, Rye stated that management "felt that Wheatley had destroyed his objectivity and objectivity is one of the most important qualities a news reporter must maintain." Rye further explained to employees that Wheatley had indeed asked the station to take the legal action he eventually took, but that, "we refused on the same grounds that caused us to look with disfavor on his action . . . obvious loss of objectivity."
Richard Wheatley meanwhile ponders his next move, and with flagging optimism, awaits a further display of justice on April 9.
MAYOR AND THE MUSIC
Not long ago on a Sunday afternoon we accompanied the new mayor of Houston, Fred Hofheinz, his wife, Mac, and their 11-year-old son, Paul, to a ten-hour, eight-band progressive country music festival in Hofheinz Pavilion. It was for the benefit of the local Pacifica station, KPFT-FM, and they were benefited some $21,000 worth.
Progressive country music differs from old timey, Grand Ole Opry country music in that instruments usually associated with country bands—violin, banjo, pedal steel guitar, dobro, mandolin, are added to the basic four-piece rock and roll ensemble (base, rhythm and lead guitars, and drums). Piano and organ show up frequently in each group.
Whether it is Lefty Frizzell or Commander Cody doing the singing, the subjects remain the same: love, prisons, trucks and mother.
The mayor is out of the young, earnest, accustomed-to-power mold: in character cool and collected; in appearance slight of build, with dark eyes and hair and a boyish grin that always brings a "why he's too young to be mayor," comment from older folks. Hofheinz earned a PhD in economics and a law degree from The University of Texas before coming back to Houston to manage his family's entertainment empire.
Hofheinz owns a Martin D-18 guitar on which he pounds out Jimmy Rogers and Hank Williams tunes after he has ended the ribbon-cutting, speech-making, and council-presiding for the day.
His Honor's assigned seats were second row center (seats 9-13) but his Huckleberry Finn look-alike son Paul quickly moved up to empty seat 12 on row one with a new Wollensak 3M recorder to insure himself the best possible visual and aural vantage point.
Paul has become the George Plimpton, Jr., of Houston, acting out all children's fantasies. He has been a flyer with Ringling Brothers' finest trapeze act, the Flying Gaonas; he has boxed with Ali, played horse with Wilt Chamberlain, touch football with Jim Brown, batted against the Astros' finest, operated the giant electric scoreboard at the Astrodome, and now is working on a novel. "It's not autobiographical because an 11-year-old kid just hasn't done that much," he says seriously, pulling back a lock of bright red hair from his eyes.
Mac married the mayor 12 years ago while both were students at The University of Texas and he was planning a career in teaching. She is intelligent, blonde, doesn't smoke or drink, and relishes privacy and hot sun in that order.
Last summer, Paul and sister Tracey made up the entire gentile population at Echo Hill Camp near Kerrville, owned and operated by the parents of perhaps the most progressive country singer of all, Kinky Friedman, who appeared later in the day minus all but one of his band, the Texas Jewboys.
The mayor arrived shortly after 2 p.m., dressed in a tan, western-cut shirt and pants, and boots, and accompanied by his omnipresent guard, Officer Don Weaver of the Houston police department. He planned to stay an hour, leave and dedicate the Lonnie E. Smith Library in Houston's predominantly black third ward, and come back for some more music before his next engagement.
Five or six thousand of Houston's cosmic cow persons and gamboling youths gathered inside Hofheinz's theater-in-the-round to hear Austin's Jerry Jeff Walker kick off with his own classic, "Mr. Bojangles." "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Motha" was next, and after a rousing five- or six-song set, Jerry Jeff and his nine-piece band packed up for a quick trip to Phoenix for an engagement that night.
Officer Weaver enjoyed himself immensely, tactfully ignoring the fog-like conditions caused by several thousand marijuana smokers. Asleep At the Wheel, a western swing band from Austin, struck up "Choo Choo Boogie" and won Weaver's heart. "Shoot, they play Bob Wills better than Bob Wills," he said with a grin from ear to ear.
The most exciting moments of the music marathon were provided by longtime San Antonio singer Doug Sahm (see page 46), playing with an excellent Austin group with my favorite name, Freda and the Firedogs. Sahm could probably hypnotize a chicken with his infectious Tex-Mex music, and the audience swarmed toward the stage like hornets round a jam pot as Doug yowled, "Texas tornado, yew ole son-of-a-gun."
At 11:15 Land Commissioner Bob Armstrong introduced country music guru Willie Nelson (beardless this time) who sang an hour's worth of his own songs. Close up you can see friends' names carved in his guitar: Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Billy Joe Shaver, Joe Jamail.
My Library
