April 04, 2015 Colleyville, TX
An LNO Column
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Another Colleyville City Council Election and another run by Colleyville’s perennial candidate Mike Taylor, with a record of 7 times running for office on Colleyville’s City Council. If you like a semi-professional local politician..you will love Mike Taylor. He has a long storied history of being involved in Republican Politics as well as local politics where he has a reputation of being on ALL SIDES OF MOST ISSUES.
However, before you believe, Taylor’s “I am a conservative” chant; note this is the guy who voted to strip the long time and storied Couch family of their commercial property on Hwy 26, (now where the Londoner stands). Then agreed to turn around and lease the property to the developer of the Village of Colleyville for $10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In other words, the rights of the individual may be secondary to the government’s will and what is best for the city, as he sees it.
So when you think about this election and the nonsense the Glade Road Ballot Initiative will STOP improvements to Glade Road..FIRST that is not the case, intersections as well as a total reconstruction is allowed; but NOT the 10 year dilemma whereby the Glade Road, Put in 10 ft trails in an Eminent Domain Land Grap, would have you believe.
If you are willing to take land from an elderly couple and then lease to a Developer for $10; then my guess is voting to take your land on Glade Road, destroy your trees and the rural feel, for the benefit of his regional partners..is a very real possibility.
This guy should go….he has morphed into a Regional Representative, NOT a Colleyville Citizens Advocate.
Since LNO has been published since 2000, a significant amount of perspective on this year’s 8th run for office by Mr. Taylor, for those who may not have lived in Colleyville for the last 15 to 25 years is presented below.
Below are links and excerpts from 15 years of covering Colleyville politics by LNO and Mike Taylor..there is much more as well.
| Time Stamped 4-30-01 @ 9:12 AM 2001 Dear Editor, I have just received Mike Taylor’s latest campaign “literature.” I believe he is wasting his time running for mayor of Colleyville. He needs to relocate to Washington D.C. and become a political spin doctor! His facts are massaged so much they bear little resemblance to the truth. If he had worked for Clinton, he wouldn’t have any impeachment worries, there would have been talk of adding him to Mt. Rushmore.He states he is for the library, but has voted against it every time except the one instance he brings up, and that was not a vote to have a library or not. If he is so certain that he reflects the will of the people, he should not be so misleading in his campaign literature. Tell it like it is, Mr. Taylor and let the citizens decide. |
| 2001 Mike Taylor, seen accepting a plaque for his service on the Hwy 26 Committee from current Mayor Donna Arp, filed for mayor yesterday saying “Newton was from the past” and “Hocutt was part of the status quo”.Mike Taylor has filed for Place 2 City Council as of 5 pm on Thursday. Taylor is a two time loser for mayor running in 2001 against Donna Arp, Taylor received 42% of the vote out of 3,392 votes. Taylor ran again in a three way race with current Mayor Joe Hocutt and former Mayor Richard Newton and received only 664 or 23%. |
| As reported by LNO on April 17, 2003 Joe Tigue, at the April 2003 candidates debate at Colleyville Heritage High School, Tigue launched into a verbal assault on Mike Taylor calling him a “liar” and shouting obscenities. |
| March 5, 2005 | In a news release today, Mike Taylor, a longtime community volunteer and former councilman, announced his filing for Place 2 on the Colleyville City Council.The release continued, a lifelong resident, Taylor has over 20 years of dedicated service to the Colleyville and the Northeast Tarrant County communities.. |
| 2005 Taylor voted to take Couch Property by threats of Eminent Domain in 2001 In the summer of 2000, Taylor supported the most controversial threaten condemnation of private property in the city’s history when the historic Couch property was purchased by the city. The elderly Mrs. Couch stated that Taylor had attempted to convince her to sell their building to the city in 1999, however she wanted to keep the property. The City Council voted to take the property, by condemnation if necessary. After purchasing the property, the building was leased to the Village of Colleyville development for $10 per month. After LNO exposed the deal with the Village and the resulting significant public outcry, Taylor later recanted his vote in a speech to the City Council stating “if I had known what was going on behind my back, with negotiations with the Village, I would have never supported the condemnation of that (Couch) property.” |
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| 2005 During his fourth run for office, after losing three times in a row, Taylor was said to have stated, in a gathering of supporters, that he had the ear of the Star-Telegram and he would use it to clean up matters at city hall. I don’t know what he meant, but I am convinced Taylor at least has the ear of the Courier and continues as a source of “inside” information. The most recent “clean up” had to do with the city’s website, as noted below. |
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| 2009 Of course, there were these headlines in 2009 – Mike Taylor is barred from GOP convention because of altered documents Excerpts from the Article. Witnesses say Taylor’s “This is always how we have done business,” is an affront to the election process The names of the list was headed by Michael Taylor, the Place 6 candidate for re-election along with Susan his wife and Caitlin his daughter. Steven and Vicki Weinberg were also added although there is no evidence that the Weinbergs were aware of the change in advance.Barber (The Precinct Convention Chairman) took exception to the incredulous notion that someone could simply go into the GOP headquarters, open a sealed envelope, whiteout the documents to alter the number of people attending AND then simply name delegates to the County/Senatorial District Convention, including Mike Taylor the individual that admitted to changing the document.Barber told LNO that the committee refused to seat any of the people listed headed by Mike Taylor. Another witness that asked not to be named said one member of the committee said she was “appalled” at the alteration of documents.Taylor “admitted” he was the one that altered the document, however Barber paraphrased that Taylor said”…that is how things have been done.” Taylor was also alleged to say that these were new people and really did not understand the process. However, Taylor’s “stuffing the delegate ballot box” was not “just the way things get done.” He was not the only individual barred from being a delegate at the convention. |
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| 2009 Mike Taylor has a problem filing campaign finance reports It seems Mr. Taylor mistakenly filed his “neighbor” at his home address, plus more. |
| February 26, 2010 – Letter to Editor Lopez Stirs up Activity and a State Rep pays money to get rid of her. By the way, Mike has never done his job of precinct chair. He has never notified me of any “Republican” activities, voting info , or anything. Ellen, even though she doesn’t have the title, has busted her hiney trying to inform our precinct of election times, location, and candidates. Why does Mike Taylor care if he is precinct chair? |
| February 27, 2013 Colleyville, TX Editorial..Why Did Councilman Taylor NOT KNOW he voted to sale Park Property? However, please read through the document to the planning stages of Parks in Colleyville. One will note that the document produced cover 1996 -1998 with further plans for Kimzey Park clearly discussed in the Implementation of park priorities during this time frame. A great deal of the work done in 1998. Councilman Mike Taylor served on City Council in 1998 along with myself. Therefore, it certainly appears to be somewhat disingenuous for today’s Council Taylor to state he voted for the Resolution to sale the Park Property because“Councilman Taylor said they did not know about the 20 page document when they voted last week.” |
| September 19, 2014 Taylor is clearly enamored with his role on the Regional Boards of Tex Rail and the Council of Governments. It appears particularly strange for one who professes to be a conservative, as Taylor does, to take the position that there is nothing the citizens of Colleyville can do. In other words, if you live in Colleyville, when it comes to regional decisions that can impact your home, you are the pawn of regional and the federal government. There is nothing you can do, nor is there anything you should do, because you don’t want to upset the “other cities.” To further underscore the thinking of Councilman Mike Taylor he was quoted as saying the city is not a part of the project (TexRail). He suggested residents visit the TEX Rail website or attend public hearings for information. Once again ignoring the fact Taylor voted for a 2009 Resolution supporting the project by the City of Colleyville.Of course, Taylor has a reputation for being on many sides of the same issues. |
| Colleyville, TX August 20, 2014 Councilman mike Taylor responded, “We have been clear we don’t want the rail.”Then Taylor continued to say, “However, I have a big concerned about how many people are retired. Everyone does not drive an expensive car to get to work. In Colleyville, we want waiters to serve our tables but they don’t have a way to get here.” Taylor said to Putnam, “In reality you are trying to get people mad about something we can do nothing about.”“I don’t play games, nobody says what we can do to negate the rail,” he concluded . |
