The RCA, a Blogger, and Transparency Note: RumorCheck does not normally use names in its editorials and RumorChecks, but in this circumstance, because of the repeated violations of common decency by a blogger and how this impacts current City Council campaigns, we will make an exception. "The "Bread and Butter[sic] of the Richardson Coalition and rumorcheck is misinformation, deceit and outright lies. Evidence of this type of behavior can be found in the latest Richardson Coalition email and their reference to a website which bases its opinions on false and misleading information and outright lies." Thus begins a scathing attack on RumorCheck.org that lasted all of 24 hours before being taken down by the blogger who posted it. You can read the entire text of what was posted here – of course, since it was taken down by the blogger, you can no longer read the original website. Why is this posting worthy of comment by RumorCheck? Because of the reaction to this posting that followed. The blogger, David Chenoweth, has become notorious in Richardson for publishing a blog in which he freely insults other Richardsonians. In his own way, he has picked up the mantle of the infamous Nathan Morgan – now thankfully moved to San Antonio – in his willingness to write or say nearly anything against his political enemies, whether or not there is any truth to the charges. What sorts of things? Mr. Chenoweth (January 7, 2011) dismissed non-profit CEO and City Council candidate  Laura Maczka as mere "arm candy" and nicknamed her "Cutie Pie". He posted an email (March 4, 2011) that insisted that Muslims could not be loyal citizens nor trusted officeholders in the US. When local blogger Mark Steger denounced the email with "This is religious bigotry and I condemn it", Mr. Chenoweth didn't seem concerned and let anonymous posts bashing Muslims stand. He has repeatedly made personal insults, such as repeatedly referring to a certain HOA president as "lapdog" (apparently because he disagrees with Mr. Chenoweth on many issues) or usually referring to our City Attorney as "almost never present city attorney" (note to David: he's a contractor, not an employee, and therefore only shows up when the City asks him to come). But the strange thing is that if you go to his website now, you won't find any of these comments, nor the comments that you see at the top of this editorial where he accuses RumorCheck (and the Richardson Coalition) of "misinformation, deceit and outright lies". In fact, if you have been following his blog (as painful as it is, I don’t recommend it), you will note that he has removed nearly all of his content published prior to January of this year. Given how proud Mr. Chenoweth is of defaming the City and a lot of individuals in it, it's reasonable to ask why this happened. Besides being a blogger who likes to make personal and often tasteless remarks about people in Richardson (on January 5, 2011, he referred to me on his blog with "He has also placed his nose so far into so many cheeks, that there is a brown stain that can't be removed"), Mr. Chenoweth has another claim to fame: he is a co-founder of the Richardson Citizens Alliance, according to the Form GTA that the Alliance filed on September 8, 2010 with the Texas Ethics Commission. The RCA (Richardson Citizens Alliance) is a political action group in Texas, whose expressed desire is to "oust city leaders". Note that the GTA lists only four "decision makers" for the RCA PAC, and since Mr. Chenoweth is one of them, anyone associated with the RCA must be concerned about being tainted by Mr. Chenoweth's blog. There are two City Council candidates – John DeMattia and Karl Voigtsberger – who are listed as "members" of the RCA on its website, and who will presumably be endorsed by the RCA. Based on his history, it is highly unlikely that Mr. Chenoweth voluntarily removed the offensive content. It is much more likely that he was told to do so by other members of the RCA, especially Mr. DeMattia and Mr. Voigtsberger, who would expect to see serious damage to their campaigns when decent people in Richardson realize that Mr. Chenoweth, Mr. DeMattia, and Mr. Voigtsberger are all political partners in the RCA. As I recall, the original tagline of the RCA was "Bringing Transparency to Government" (it's now changed to "Transparency and Fiscal Responsibility for Richardson"). Did Mr. DeMattia and Mr. Voigtsberger tell Mr. Chenoweth to remove the offensive content because they themselves found it offensive, or did they tell Mr. Chenoweth to remove the offensive content because they were afraid that people in Richardson would find out what the RCA really stands for? After all, "transparency" does work both ways. The decent people in Richardson deserve to know. William J. ‘Bill’ McCalpin Richardson, Texas P.S. As for the three items apparently listed in Coalition email (RumorCheck isn't on the Coalition email list so never received it nor even knew it was coming), his first complaint is easily dismissed. Here is the original email from the RCA supplied by a recipient of the email to the City. This is the email I was referring to, not what the NPAR may or may not have written. As you can see, the phrase I referred to, "an extremely large apartment complex", is clearly in the email from the RCA. His second complaint is easily dismissed since the comment about the "the term limits language in the Charter is 'bogus'" was made at the RCA's January 20, 2011 meeting in front of eyewitnesses. His third comment is the most laughable of all. He states "I have not found a single person who could provide a copy of that handout, or that even remembers there being a handout." Here is a link to the handout that Mr. Chenoweth so mysteriously can’t remember (check out “[t]he debt owed in Richardson has increased significantly more than any other city our size in the metroplex over the last 11 years” in the middle of the large paragraph).