Re: Time for Change in Collin County

In 1997, I was the Mayor of Celina and while in that capacity formed a
committee and tasked them with acquiring the right of way from Highway 380 North
to the County Line. The committee members consisted of Steve Robinson, Joe
Sagnibene, Rex Glendenning, Jay Jones, John Razor, and a gentleman from Light
Ranch. The committee worked to get letters of intent and accomplished their
task DESPITE the efforts of Joe Jaynes who was the County Commissioner at
that time. Mr. Jaynes might be saying that he “worked with landowners to have
right-of-way for the Dallas North Tollway donated – SAVING Collin County
Taxpayers $10 Million” but that could not be farther from the truth. It was the
committee that I formed that accomplished that task. Mr. Jaynes actually
worked to SLOW DOWN the process because they had not completed the acquisition
of land south of 380 at that point and it might be embarrassing to have the land above it already donated while they hadn’t even come close to completing
their task.
Joe Jaynes was a hindrance to that process – he was NOT RESPONSIBLE for
getting the land donated. He didn’t save the taxpayers money. He was not a part of that group.
I hope that the voters of Collin County remember that if Joe Jaynes isn’t
being honest on his campaign literature, that they can’t trust him to remain
their commissioner.

Olen Long

Why Joe Jaynes is not fit for office

Why Joe Jaynes is not fit for office

A bereaved family urges voters to remove Joe Jaynes from Collin County government

October 28, 1995, was the worst day of my life. It was the day my beautiful daughter, Angela, was killed in a car accident while traveling 500 miles to Tennessee.

There was no alcohol or foul play involved. It was just three young students from Collin County Community College driving all through the night to attend a Civil War battle reenactment when the driver fell asleep and crashed.

These young college students had been promised by their college history professor, Joe Jaynes, that they would not have to take their final exam if they made the road trip to see the battle reenactment, in which Mr. Jaynes was a participant. My late daughter, who had a learning disability and struggled in school, needed this extra credit to pass Jaynes’ class.

I felt then, as I do now, that Jaynes was guilty of questionable, unethical and lazy teaching tactics. Why would a college professor offer extra credit to a group of young students with little experience driving that would require them to travel hundreds of miles?

Jaynes also "sold grades" by asking my daughter to give him cash to donate to a charity in lieu of a quiz grade, and he regularly had students watch movies rather than reading or listening to lectures. He even joked about the growing of marijuana in one of his classes. Selling grades and watching movies in lieu of proper classroom instruction is not the way to prepare our future workforce.

While I feel his unnecessary assignment was indirectly responsible for the death of my child, it is his actions after this tragedy that most appalled my family. Above all else, I seriously question the man’s character and judgment.

And this is why I must convey, with strong conviction, that Joe Jaynes lacks the human compassion, integrity and moral fiber to serve as our County Commissioner.

My family and I neither sought money nor filed suit for this tragic accident. We simply wanted Mr. Jaynes to admit he made a mistake and exercised poor judgment, two things we needed to be able to move on. To this day, my family has never have received this closure. The Collin County Community College administration closed ranks around Mr. Jaynes and lined up their well-connected lawyers. In fact, when we lobbied the college about changing the grading policies, or lack thereof, we were ignored and virtually ushered out of the building, while Joe Jaynes continued his maverick teaching policies.

During his first campaign for County Commissioner, Joe Jaynes promised that if elected, he would no longer teach classes at the community college. Sadly, he has broken that promise as he still teaches two nights a week while serving as a Commissioner. Isn’t this a conflict of interest?

Mr. Jaynes in fact has a history of taking advantage of loopholes and skirting ethics. A telling example is when Collin County government started a tuition reimbursement program designed to help county employees who need help with school expenses so they could earn college degrees. Jaynes took advantage of this program to put himself through law school – at taxpayer’s expense. Jaynes has proven again and again his sense of entitlement and lacked any sense of propriety to grab all he could.

My wife and I do not get involved in campaigns. But in this race we felt it was important for local voters to know of our tragedy and Mr. Jaynes’ appalling explanation for his actions. Every single day we are reminded of the loss of our child and every time we see Joe Jaynes in the newspaper, we are reminded why this man lacks the integrity to serve our community.

Howard Geffen
Plano

Re: Time for Change in Collin County

My comments involving Collin County directly involve the City of McKinney, Texas, the county seat of Collin County. A sense of apathy has overcome our community in the last ten years. We are in dire need of more "citizen servers" to serve our community. Multi-term professional politicians should become a thing of the past, if we as citizens of McKinney and Collin County wish to see a positive future for the Collin county area in the future. More on this subject by referencing http://www.wordsuponmystone.wordpress.com

Thank you for allowing me to post,

A McKinney voter and taxpayer