Noe's Problematic Answer About Attendance
If you watched the ABC7 Xtra debate on KVIA Sunday night that featured the candidates for Texas House District 79, you might have noticed a portion of the debate in which former City Rep Mike Noe was asked about his attendance record.
The question comes from Art Fierro, chair of the El Paso Community College Board of Trustees. Not exactly a household name when it comes to elected bodies, but Fierro makes the point that he's never missed a meeting while in that elected position.
Fierro has been on that board for 12 years. He hasn't missed a meeting in 12 freaking years. So he rightfully challenged Noe on his attendance record.
The contrast in the two candidates is pretty clear - Fierro has had zero absences in 12 years and Noe has had 27 absences in 8 years.
Here's a clip of the debate, along with his his answer, that you should watch before going forward, because his answer to the critique of missing meetings is pretty important.
The truth is very different from how Noe frames his answer.
Noe makes it sound like he's got a fantastic attendance record, and then hedges his answer, all in the same response.
But if you look at this document from the city, which is where I got the numbers above, you can see that Noe has missed 16 regular city council meetings. But on top of the 16 regular city council meetings, he's missed an additional 11 special meetings.
Thats a total of 27 meetings were the people that elected him to be their voice on city council had no advocate at that meeting. I took a look at a few random agendas to get a sense of how many agenda items there are on an average meeting. It is by no means scientific but you're looking around 30-40 agenda items per meeting for regular meetings. That means Dr. Noe has missed at least 500 votes as a city representative - just on regular meetings.
Thats not counting special meetings that he missed either.
That is 500 items that Eastsiders had no voice on. How much money was expended on their behalf? How many streets were or were not paved? How many important issues did the Eastside not have input on? How many important items were heard where there was an empty chair where a city representative should have been?
So Noe knew he was going to get hit on his attendance, which is why he had a canned response ready that was probably prepared by his campaign staffer, Dora Oaxaca. She famously turned on her own boss for political expediency in this video where she called Commissioner Gandara an "absent commissioner", and she used to work for Emma Acosta who also had a bad attendance record, so she's used to having to cover for an elected with a bad attendance record.
But if you listen to Noe's answer he really tries to downplay the absences by first saying that he served for a long time and that there were so many meetings over that time period. However Art Fierro has been an elected official four years longer and for an elected body in which excessive absences wouldn't even really be noticed. Yet he cared enough about the job he was elected by eastsiders to do to show up to every meeting.
Noe tries the little parlor trick of implying that 27 absences over an 8 year stint on council isn't bad. He'd be right if you were talking about a regular job that you and I would have were we had to attend every day. When you think about it that way, 27 absences in 8 years ain't so bad if you figure you work about 317 days of the year. That would be around 2,536 work days over that time period and you'd be out only once every 94 days.
But the reality is that Noe only had to work one day a week for about half of his career on council, until council cut their meetings in half. Now that they only have to show up to work one day every other week, being absent 27 times is a REALLY big deal.
Lets say he only had to work one day a week for his entire term on council (just so it doesn't look as bad as it really is). That means he'd have 416 work days. Being absent 27 times means he was absent once every 15 days.
Lets be real, would you still have a job if you were absent once ever two weeks?
Hell, Dr Noe is a businessman. I doubt he'd keep an employee that had his kind of attendance record.
The reality is that voters want full-time representation, not part-time representation. What Noe doesn't talk about isn't just all of his absences, but all the times he had to leave a meeting early, or showed up late. If you added all the missed votes for those reasons, the number of missed votes would probably be staggering. Seriously, Noe is known by his former colleagues for missing a lot of meetings. They've delayed votes to make sure he could come in and vote on an item too.
Look, I get it. He's a doctor and he performs a really important job. Hell he's delivered my grandkids. But the reality he has the type of job that means he's going to miss meetings. Its part of being an obstetrician. Its one of the most admirable professions out there. I don't slight him for that.
But the bottom line is that there is a cost to being a Noe-Show at meetings.
And YOU pay that cost.
Noe doubt about it.
The question comes from Art Fierro, chair of the El Paso Community College Board of Trustees. Not exactly a household name when it comes to elected bodies, but Fierro makes the point that he's never missed a meeting while in that elected position.
Fierro has been on that board for 12 years. He hasn't missed a meeting in 12 freaking years. So he rightfully challenged Noe on his attendance record.
The contrast in the two candidates is pretty clear - Fierro has had zero absences in 12 years and Noe has had 27 absences in 8 years.
Here's a clip of the debate, along with his his answer, that you should watch before going forward, because his answer to the critique of missing meetings is pretty important.
The truth is very different from how Noe frames his answer.
Noe makes it sound like he's got a fantastic attendance record, and then hedges his answer, all in the same response.
But if you look at this document from the city, which is where I got the numbers above, you can see that Noe has missed 16 regular city council meetings. But on top of the 16 regular city council meetings, he's missed an additional 11 special meetings.
Thats a total of 27 meetings were the people that elected him to be their voice on city council had no advocate at that meeting. I took a look at a few random agendas to get a sense of how many agenda items there are on an average meeting. It is by no means scientific but you're looking around 30-40 agenda items per meeting for regular meetings. That means Dr. Noe has missed at least 500 votes as a city representative - just on regular meetings.
Thats not counting special meetings that he missed either.
That is 500 items that Eastsiders had no voice on. How much money was expended on their behalf? How many streets were or were not paved? How many important issues did the Eastside not have input on? How many important items were heard where there was an empty chair where a city representative should have been?
So Noe knew he was going to get hit on his attendance, which is why he had a canned response ready that was probably prepared by his campaign staffer, Dora Oaxaca. She famously turned on her own boss for political expediency in this video where she called Commissioner Gandara an "absent commissioner", and she used to work for Emma Acosta who also had a bad attendance record, so she's used to having to cover for an elected with a bad attendance record.
But if you listen to Noe's answer he really tries to downplay the absences by first saying that he served for a long time and that there were so many meetings over that time period. However Art Fierro has been an elected official four years longer and for an elected body in which excessive absences wouldn't even really be noticed. Yet he cared enough about the job he was elected by eastsiders to do to show up to every meeting.
Noe tries the little parlor trick of implying that 27 absences over an 8 year stint on council isn't bad. He'd be right if you were talking about a regular job that you and I would have were we had to attend every day. When you think about it that way, 27 absences in 8 years ain't so bad if you figure you work about 317 days of the year. That would be around 2,536 work days over that time period and you'd be out only once every 94 days.
But the reality is that Noe only had to work one day a week for about half of his career on council, until council cut their meetings in half. Now that they only have to show up to work one day every other week, being absent 27 times is a REALLY big deal.
Lets say he only had to work one day a week for his entire term on council (just so it doesn't look as bad as it really is). That means he'd have 416 work days. Being absent 27 times means he was absent once every 15 days.
Lets be real, would you still have a job if you were absent once ever two weeks?
Hell, Dr Noe is a businessman. I doubt he'd keep an employee that had his kind of attendance record.
The reality is that voters want full-time representation, not part-time representation. What Noe doesn't talk about isn't just all of his absences, but all the times he had to leave a meeting early, or showed up late. If you added all the missed votes for those reasons, the number of missed votes would probably be staggering. Seriously, Noe is known by his former colleagues for missing a lot of meetings. They've delayed votes to make sure he could come in and vote on an item too.
Look, I get it. He's a doctor and he performs a really important job. Hell he's delivered my grandkids. But the reality he has the type of job that means he's going to miss meetings. Its part of being an obstetrician. Its one of the most admirable professions out there. I don't slight him for that.
But the bottom line is that there is a cost to being a Noe-Show at meetings.
And YOU pay that cost.
Noe doubt about it.
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